McGrath Institute Blog

What could “tough love” possibly have to do with the dual sense of consolation I experienced last month in a special prayer service? My wife and I gathered with our parish family to express solidarity with fellow Christians and to see more clearly our need for trust in Our Lord and the Blessed Mother.

A few days after last year’s Feast of the Visitation, I started working on this poem. I had recently come across a villanelle (a form of poetry that’s a bit like a puzzle, definitely structured but not too strict) and wanted to try writing one myself. I looked back at it today and was surprised how much I liked it—enough to share it, I guess.

Yesterday’s post discussed the human need for counsel on the path to heaven, an important point for today’s feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel. It is the virtue of docility, or “teachableness,” that opens our hearts and minds to receive counsel from prudent friends, mentors and teachers who are also seeking holiness.

Every day at noon, the PA system at Christ the Redeemer School in Houston, TX, comes on with a ping! and an invitation rings out, “Please stand for the Angelus.” Throughout the entire building and campus (playground included), everyone from preschool through administration joins in praying the Angelus, recalling and praying the mystery of salvation that came through Mary’s “yes.”