An Unexpected Surprise

We had an interesting surprise yesterday. As we were getting ready to go to Church we were gathering vases for our new roses to be used for the Children's Rosary.  The other night Asher had taken out some old roses from our last Children's Rosary over a week ago where we had the first class relic of St. Anne and St. Therese the Little Flower.  Asher our 7 year old, did not want to throw the roses in the trash even though they were dead so before bed he went out and started breaking up the petals in our vegetable garden.  It was taking him awhile and we were losing light so he asked if he could finish the next day.  He just left the dead roses in the vase outside.  Yesterday we went out and there was something I had never seen before.  New bright living shoots out the side of the rose stems even though the flowers appeared dead.  It looked like a little bush in the vase.  As today is the Feast of St. Anne and her relic is still in our house along with a first class relic of St. Therese the little Flower it seemed a very beautiful little grace.  Out of something dead something new, fresh, and hopeful....a renewal of sorts of that which is tired and old and thought to be worthless...indeed narrowly missing the trash.  

What is also special is that the children planted a rose bush on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima several years ago at our Church of St. Thomas as a gift to Our Lady.  It died this winter.  As I have been walking each day by it on the way to Mass and seeing the dead stump I wondered if we should replant there.  Now we have a rose almost given to us by Our Lady that we can plant outside the Chapel.  A rose that took life from the Rosary itself.  It has no roots yet just the stem but I am encouraged by the branches.

Thought I would share this little grace with you all.  While I am sure such growth of a rose is certainly possible it seemed a wonderful little gift.

To see pictures from the Children's Rosary where the flowers were originally present with the relic of St. Therese and St. Anne click here.  The pictures posted of the Rosary do not directly shown the roses but they are in vases in front of the children on either side of Our Lady's Statue.

Thank you all and may you all have a Blessed Feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim.