A Puddle

Occasionally on this blog I have shared a bit about the journey of an illness that pulled me from an active career as an Endodontist and bit by bit simplified my life. At the time it did not feel like my life was becoming simpler. Rather it felt like a terrible road that was leading away from my ability to live life. Through a genetic condition that was diagnosed during the pregnancy with our son, I was warned that my body might deteriorate. Indeed this is what happened. Not only would I lose the ability to do many of the things I wanted to do to care for myself such as even tying my shoes for myself. I could not even open a refrigerator to get something to eat. This was due to instability of the joints in my hands and other parts of my body. This instability caused injury and even joint dislocation. There were periods of time when I was in excruciating pain. It was through this process that Our Lord was breaking down deeply rooted ideas that I could do things on my own and did not need to rely on God. 

After reaching the worst of my physical decline, often I would think of myself as a puddle. I was brought low, so low in fact that nothing solid remained just a puddle of my former self. I thought of this puddle as the lowest point. One could get no lower at least in the way I thought of myself. 

Our Lord did not leave me alone...in fact I am certain I was never alone at any point in that spiraling decline. But once I hit rock bottom and I turned everything over to God hope flooded in. I would never get back my ability to do many things such as practice dentistry, drive or even open a refrigerator, yet the future seemed bright. In some ways my body began to stabilize and I again could walk more then across a room and even could walk to Mass each day. Yet as I would speak of those darkest moments I would often relate the feeling of being a puddle. The image of myself never seemed to leave me. The sadness was gone. It was rather just a way to describe a feeling I had. 

Today when after Mass I found myself needing to lay down I was reminded of the puddle. As I thought of the puddle Our Lord showed me the beauty of even a simple dirty puddle. The water that fell was clean but the world had in many ways sullied it. Yet even in this rather pitiful state when the sun peeked out from behind a cloud this dirty little puddle could reflect that which is above. It surely had no beauty of its own.  Of itself the puddle is to be avoided by most people of good sense as one wants to keep your shoes clean and dry. Yet God can use even this little puddle for His Glory. The puddle could do what many of the things in the yard could not do. It could reflect the beauty of the sky in such a way. 

I have always felt that Our Lord kept my limitations always present to keep me always aware at how dependent I am on Him. He had taught me in a very hard lesson, hard because of my stubbornness. He had taught me the beauty of the response of Peter to Our Lord's question: "You do not want to go away also, do you?" and Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go?"(John 6:68)  I had through many tries attempted many other paths. I found none satisfying save one that Our Lord was leading me on. So today in my bed I called to my daughter to go out and take some pictures of puddles. As a good daughter she indulged me. What she brought back was just what I suspected in my heart. There were small puddles that shown beautifully the sky with all its splendor. As I mentioned before, most people try to avoid puddles. This is of course save for the little child who loves nothing more then jumping in puddles. What can be more fun? Maybe this is why Our Lord has put me among so many children through the Children's Rosary. It is there that His little puddle can serve Him best.

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"Take Up and Read!"

One of the most famous conversion in the Catholic Church is that of St. Augustine.  After years of pleasure away from the Church St. Augustine experienced a conversion.  His dear mother, St. Monica,  had spent many years praying for her wayward son and shed many tears for him.  So many parents have taken encouragement from the patience and faithfulness of St. Monica and the beautiful gift of such a deep conversion in her son.  St. Augustine has not only been raised to a Saint within the Church but also named a Doctor of the Church.

St. Augustine recounts in the book Confessions the moment of his deep conversion.
I was ... weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl I know not which--coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again, "Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it." Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like. So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon...
So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting, for there I had put down the apostle's book [Paul's letter to the Romans] when I had left there. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof."[Romans 13:13] I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

It has always struck me, that Our Lord would choose the voice of a child to call St. Augustine to Himself.  There is something particularly special about children, probably their innocence that allows Our Lord to work through them with such a powerful affect.  In reading these accounts in history of the role children have played in calling souls to Our Lord there is a hope that wells in the heart that these ever growing groups of children praying the Rosary will have a profound affect on many souls for the good.