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As a kid, I loved the May crowning of our Blessed Mother.\u00a0 In second grade, I got to bring the crown up on a silky pillow.\u00a0 I memorized all the songs and even now when I sing them in mass, I can hear eight year old me belting it out with all sincerity, out of tune but completely earnest in my singing.<\/p>\n
As part of Easter, as part of celebrating this month, I\u2019m trying to get back on the Rosary bandwagon.\u00a0 The thought had teased more than once today.\u00a0 A friend at work indicated he\u2019d been to a funeral,\u00a0 I took the name of the deceased and said I\u2019d add him to my rosary.\u00a0 When I got home, my email included a post from Next Door about a homeless woman in a wheelchair dying today in the parking lot of a local shopping strip we frequent.\u00a0 \u00a0Someone commented, \u201cMay she rest in peace.\u201d and I remembered, she should be remembered in the rosary too.<\/p>\n
Sitting down from the day, the red velvet bag had been buried by two books and a headband.\u00a0 Somehow, despite the reminders to me, it took a bit of effort to ferret it out.\u00a0 \u00a0 My son came in to take over our bathroom, and a daughter came to ask for help with work.\u00a0 \u00a0My husband sat down at the desk to work and I wondered if I could even start.<\/p>\n
All the distractions indicated to me, how much the devil fears any of us praying the rosary.\u00a0 I made it through a decade before being asked to find videos for a\u00a0 history assignment not blocked by the school webblocker.\u00a0 However, she decided she would do it herself, which meant I could return to the rosary if I disciplined myself. I admit, the second decade came slowly.\u00a0 \u00a0I got distracted by social media, my phone, and the desire to be clever on someone else\u2019s page, and then came a post requesting comfort and again, the Blessed Mother cleared her throat.<\/p>\n
In that image, I heard, \u201cSherry, these people need your prayers.\u201d and the inverse, \u201cSherry, you need to be praying, they\u2019re helping you too.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time I finished the second decade, I felt weepy.\u00a0 Mary has always been there for me. I recalled when she sent rosaries almost every day for several weeks to me, like a monsoon of rosaries, when I thought maybe I should be praying it.\u00a0 \u00a0When I first found out I was pregnant with my first child, I felt worried and scared of being a mother, and of enduring the risks of pregnancy \u2013and Mary gave me a glimpse of her, and under her mantle were all these children, and she sent all these mothers to that mass I attended where I had this vision.\u00a0 Wave after wave of mothers walking up to receive Jesus, and reassurance after reassurance, with each reception, with each \u201cAmen,\u201d that it would be okay.\u00a0 I know Mary held my hand when I was pregnant with Faith and stuck with bedrest, Holy Week of 2002.\u00a0 She\u2019s answered so many prayers over the years, (even the stupid ones), I\u2019m surprised she still takes my calls.\u00a0 Except she doesn\u2019t tire.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t mind my prayers or my needs.<\/p>\n
I started the third decade.\u00a0 Things got difficult, and the decade got speed prayed while we tried to help with various homework assignments.\u00a0 \u00a0It seemed appropriate that the mystery of the crowning Christ with thorns flowed through the helping with homework. It is part of parenting I struggle with; I rarely feel happy after I\u2019m dismissed, and more often, I wonder if I\u2019ve done permanent damage to the mother-child relationship, irrespective of child, age, or subject matter.<\/p>\n
The fourth decade loomed.\u00a0 I thought about excercise and how tempting it is, not at the half way but the three-fourths way, to stop.\u00a0 I was at the 3\/4th point.\u00a0 So I prayed it all for one person.\u00a0 Knots we knew were seemingly impossible to untie, loosened without even my request.\u00a0 My mother knows. I thanked her, and found myself falling into prayer again once the whole of the rosary finished.\u00a0 There were plenty of interruptions in the prayer, but where itI\u2019d felt fatigued by the iterruptons before, I now just viewed it as breathing, little exhales inbetween the prayers, that included brownies, a conversation with my eldest aabout his day off, and watching a few short clips of Mikhail Baryshnikov with analysis.\u00a0 \u00a0Mary didn\u2019t mind the interruptions and neither did I.
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\nBottom line, break out your rosary and call your mom.\u00a0 She\u2019ll be glad, and you\u2019ll be even gladder.
\nOh, and say a prayer for that poor woman who died in the parking lot in her wheelchair alone on a cold May 2nd, and for my friend and all his friends, who grieve the loss of a person they buried yesterday.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May is dedicated to Mary. \u00a0 As a kid, I loved the May crowning of our Blessed Mother.\u00a0 In second grade, I got to bring the crown up on a silky pillow.\u00a0 I memorized all the songs and even now when I sing them in mass, I can hear eight year old me belting it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4510,"featured_media":904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[205,94,119,825],"class_list":["post-2358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-intercessory-prayer","tag-parenting","tag-prayers","tag-rosary"],"yoast_head":"\n