May Mary be the star which shines on your path...Saint Pio

We honor Mary as the Queen, the star, who leads us to the Father through her Son, Jesus Christ.  How blessed I feel that a woman, one with whom I can identify in daily life, is a sure guide to follow when things get rough.  How happy I feel that she is the supreme example of love poured out and self emptied for the Lord.  What a beautiful star by which to illuminate my life.  Jesus, you must have loved her deeply on earth and now in heaven.  Help me to love her and honor you through her.

(Shown:  star from a painting called "In Search of the Child" by Elizabeth Roth)

The simple pleasures of summer...

Each day now, I take a moment from inside work to venture into a little patch of vegetables and flowers Danny and I are growing outside our back door.  I pick a handful of green beans for dinner and they taste SO fresh and lovely.  We select a little red tomato from the bush we treat like a Christmas tree, watering it each day and babying its long flailing branches.  I pick little Zenias for a spindly bouquet on our kitchen counter and herbs for our salads.  In all, I can't thank God enough for what may seem mundane to others but is a true simple pleasure for us.  I am hoping that we are learning more and more to appreciate the tiniest things in this life, the minute blossoms that produce, if we wait long enough, the most rewarding of gifts.

Long ago, I produced an illustration (hopefully for a children's book) of a little girl I named Jessie and her fascination with green beans, giant ones, in her grandfather's garden.

                  Cooked or raw, I guess green beans have always attracted my attention, at least that's the way it seems to me this August day, as I peek through my cottage door!