Happy Birthday Blessed Mother/And in Her Morning

Photo from Roses for Our Lady's Mass in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, 2013

I'm so excited about the Blessed Mother's birthday this year!  Roses for Our Lady will be celebrating in a big way with a Mass and outdoor Eucharistic Rosary Procession by candlelight at Divine Mercy Parish in South Milwaukee.  Mass with Bishop Donald Hying, Fr. Bob Betz, Fr. Joseph Sebastian, Fr. Tim Kitzke and Fr. Luke Strand is at 7 pm.   The beautiful and talented Grace Urbanski, who works and writes for the Apostleship of Prayer, (listen to Grace sing the Ave Maria here), and the St. Stanislaus Schola, will provide the music.  Then we'll have a Eucharistic procession by candlelight while praying the rosary in the lovely Divine Mercy neighborhood.  The weather forecast looks perfect!  And we'll finish off the celebration with a birthday party complete with cake and punch.  For more details, visit this link.

One of my favorite poets, Jessica Powers, aka Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, wrote a beautiful and moving poem about our Mother, and in honor of her September 8th birthday, as my own gift to her, I invite you to pray with it here.

And in Her Morning by Jessica Powers
from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers

The Virgin Mary cannot enter into
my soul for an indwelling.  God alone
has sealed this land as secretly as His own;
but being mother and implored, she comes
to stand along my eastern sky and be
a drift of sunrise over God and me.

God is a light and genitor of light.
Yet for our weakness and our punishment
He hides Himself in midnights that prevent
all save the least awareness of Him.
We strain with dimmed eyes inward and perceive
no stir of what we clamored to believe.
Yet I say:  God (if one may jest with God),
Your hiding has not reckoned with Our Lady
who holds my east horizon and whose glow
lights up my inner landscape, high and low.
All my soul's acres shine and shine with her!
You are discovered, God; awake, rise
out of the dark of Your Divine surprise!
Your own reflection has revealed Your place,
for she is utter light by Your own grace.
And in her light I find You hid within me,
and in her morning I can see Your Face.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLESSED MOTHER MARY!