Here's to 2011!

I heard this song on the radio yesterday and thought it was a great anthem to take us into the new year. Although this video is admittedly a little cheesy, I love the song and wanted to share it with all of you.

For many of us although a new year is full of hope and promises, it is sometimes hard to reach beyond discouragement and truly live in hope and perseverance of your dreams.

To all of my friends and family who have endured challenges, hardships, discouragement, and disappointment this year, this is for you. Your strength and perseverance is truly an inspiration to me. Keep on keeping on.

In 2011, continue to "do it anyway", and you may just see mountains move, and veils lifted before your very eyes.

12 days of Christmas poems...day 7

A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior

by Ben Jonson
(1572-1637)

I sing the birth was born tonight,
The Author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it,
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom willed it so,
The Son's obedience knew no "No,"
Both wills were in one stature;
And as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made Flesh indeed,
And took on Him our nature.

What comfort by Him do we win?
Who made Himself the Prince of sin,
To make us heirs of glory?
To see this Babe, all innocence,
A Martyr born in our defense,
Can man forget this story?

Celebrating the Single Life -- a book by Susan Annette Muto

I am currently reading a fabulous, captivating book. It's called "Celebrating the Single Life" by Susan Annette Muto. I picked it up at the library where I work, because the title piqued my interest immediately. I am always looking for inspirational reads to shed light on this state of life in which I find myself, hoping to gain new insight from others who have walked this road and strength for the journey.

In Muto's book, I have not only found insight and strength, but also a new found and genuine joy.

While the dated cover of this book (it was written in 1985) made me skeptical of it's relevance, I have been so pleasantly surprised at the depth of wisdom that Muto imparts. When I actually finish the book, I want to write a book review on IOG, but for now I want to share some of my favorite quotes as I read them.

I can honestly say that this is one of the most refreshing items that I have read on the topic of Catholic/Christian single life. Why? Because most things that I had read focus on helping the reader to cope with being single; most authors and speakers on this topic treat singleness as a transitory phase to be remedied as quickly as possibly, even if they do not explicitly state this. Granted, singleness is a transitory phase for most people, but there are a small few who God calls to the single life for a lifetime. Whether or not one wants to be single, there are beautiful callings unique within the life of a single person which deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated.

What Muto does in this book is describe what it means to live the single vocation not as simply a deprivation of some other good (such as marriage or family), but as it's own beautifully dignified state of life. Some of her insights on the special duties, responsibilities, gifts, and characteristics of the life of a single person are aspects that I had never even thought of before. However, as I read each chapter, it's like I am internally nodding my head, thinking "That makes so much sense! Of course that is one of the unique gifts of the single person!"

For example,

"This option to live in tune with reality in a more reflective way has to be chosen at some point by single persons. They simply have more time to confront life's limit's and possibilities than does the person who is committed to family or institutional life. This confrontation with reality happens in common ways. For instance, because there is no one face to whom the single person is bound by marriage, he or she may perceive more sharply the faces of other people. I walk along a busy street or sit observing travelers in a station, aware of the emotional scars on their lines faces. Life's limits are written there for one who takes the time to read them. So too are life's small, fleeting joys as revealed in moments of reunion. "

Stay tuned for more!

Maria's sidenote: Just a little disclaimer...although it seems as though Muto is solidly Catholic overall, at some points in her book she seems to be a little more liberal leaning. Just thought I should mention that -- I would still recommend that all Catholic singles check out this book for its pearls of wisdom.

12 days of Christmas poems...day 6

Adoration of the Shepherds, Gerard van Honhorst (1622)

The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

12 days of Christmas poems...days 3, 4, and 5

Nativity by Gerard David, Vienna (ca. 1495)

Day 3

Christmas Poem

by G.K.Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

-------
Day 4 The Holy Night
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horned faces
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought their visionary looks,
As yet in their astonied hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tonge:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

--------------

Day 5

Moonless darkness stands between

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

12 days of Christmas poems -- Day 2

Christmas (II)
by George Herbert

The shepherds sing ; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymne for thee?
My soul ’s a shepherd too : a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is thy word ; the streams, thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Out-sing the day-light houres.
Then we will chide the sunne for letting night
Take up his place and right :

We sing one common Lord ; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.

I will go searching, till I finde a sunne
Shall stay, till we have done ;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipt sunnes look sadly.
Then we will sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay :
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n his beams sing, and my musick shine.

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given

Adoration of the Shepherds by Anton Raphael Mengs

A Christmas Poem

by Catherine Doherty

You who are

Lonely,

Seeking,

not finding.

Everlastingly

Hiding

your search

from all men.

Plunge

Into the silence

Of this

Night

so tender.

Surrender to it.

You who are

Lonely,

Seeking,

Not finding,

Come to the

Crib,

Holding

A Child

For all

To see,

Yet shrouded

In the

Deepest

Of mystery.

You who are

Lonely

Seeking

Not finding,

Fall on

Your knees!

You search

Is ended.

The night

So tender.

The crib

So simple

With the

Child in it

Is what you seek.