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Anna Quindlen Tells Us to Get a Life!

9/24/2013

2 Comments

 
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Thank you, Katy, for sharing Anna's wonderful piece with One Saint:


Get a Life
by Anna Quindlen

A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck,  the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom, Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon  hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night.

And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers, and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live.

I learned to live may years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me that changed my life in ways  that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this:

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your ears and eyes open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. Remember, no one ever said on his deathbed "I wish I had spent more time at the office."

I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from police amidst the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now, even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers, after he read them.  And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't he check himself into the hospital for detox?

And he just stared at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."

And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today. Words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed.

Follow this link to read more about Anna Quindlen...

2 Comments

Stabat Mater

9/17/2013

0 Comments

 
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Thank you, Katy, for this beautiful suggestion for the All Saints Blog!

This 13th-century hymn is variously attributed to Gregory I, Bernard of Clairvaux, Pope Innocent III, St. Bonaventura, Jacopone da Todi, Pope John XXII, and Pope Gregory XI, and others; translated from Latin to English by Edward Caswall (1814-1878). It was the liturgical sequence for the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin (Sept. 15 and the Friday before Palm Sunday). It is no longer used on the Friday before Palm Sunday and is optional on September 15, but it continues to be sung at the Stations of the Cross during Lenten services. It was not admitted as a liturgical sequence until 1727, and musical settings are more numerous after that date. Stabat Mater Dolorosa is considered one of the seven greatest Latin hymns of all time. It is based upon the prophecy of Simeon that a sword was to pierce the heart of Our Lord's mother, Mary (Lk2:35).  

Click this link to peruse the source at Catholic Culture.


Prayer:

At the cross her station keeping, 
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.    

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, 
All His bitter anguish bearing, 
Now at length the sword had pass'd.    

Oh, how sad and sore distress'd 
Was that Mother highly blest 
Of the sole-begotten One!     

Christ above in torment hangs; 
She beneath beholds the pangs 
Of her dying glorious Son.     

Is there one who would not weep,
Whelm'd in miseries so deep
Christ's dear Mother to behold?     

Can the human heart refrain 
From partaking in her pain, 
In that Mother's pain untold?     

Bruis'd, derided, curs'd, defil'd, 
She beheld her tender child
All with bloody scourges rent.     

For the sins of His own nation, 
Saw Him hang in desolation, 
Till His spirit forth He sent.     

O thou Mother! fount of love! 
Touch my spirit from above; 
Make my heart with thine accord.     

Make me feel as thou hast felt; 
Make my soul to glow and melt
With the love of Christ our Lord.     

Holy Mother! pierce me through; 
In my heart each wound renew
Of my Saviour crucified.     

Let me share with thee His pain, 
Who for all my sins was slain, 
Who for me in torments died.     

Let me mingle tears with thee, 
Mourning Him who mourn'd for me, 
All the days that I may live.     

By the cross with thee to stay, 
There with thee to weep and pray, 
Is all I ask of thee to give.     

Virgin of all virgins best, 
Listen to my fond request
Let me share thy grief divine.     

Let me, to my latest breath, 
In my body bear the death
Of that dying Son of thine.     

Wounded with His every wound, 
Steep my soul till it hath swoon'd 
In His very blood away.     

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh, 
Lest in flames I burn and die, 
In His awful Judgment day.     

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence, 
Be Thy Mother my defence, 
Be Thy cross my victory.     

While my body here decays, 
May my soul Thy goodness praise, 
Safe in Paradise with Thee.     


The Latin:    
 
Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta Crucem lacrimosa, 
Dum pendebat Filius.     

Cujus animam gementem, 
Contristatam et dolentem, 
Pertransivit gladius.     

O quam tristis et afflicta 
Fuit illa benedicta 
Mater Unigeniti!  
  
Quem maerebat, et dolebat, 
Pia Mater, dum videbat 
Nati paenas inclyti.     

Quis est homo, qui non fleret, 
Matrem Christi si videret 
In tanto supplicio?     

Quis non posset contristari, 
Christi Matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum Filio?     

Pro peccatis suae gentis
Vidit Jesum in tormentis, 
Et flagellis subditum.     

Vidit suum dulcem natum
Moriendo desolatum, 
Dum emisit spiritum.  
  
Eia Mater, fons amoris, 
Me sentire vim doloris 
Fac, ut tecum lugeam.     

Fac, ut ardeat cor meum 
In amando Christum Deum, 
Ut sibi complaceam.    

Sancta Mater, istud agas, 
Crucifixi fige plagas
Cordi meo valide. 
   
Tui nati vulnerati, 
Tam dignati pro me pati, 
Paenas rnecum divide.     

Fac me tecum pie flere, 
Crucifixo condolere, 
Donec ego vixero.   
 
Juxta Crucem tecum stare, 
Et me tibi sociare 
In planctu desidero.
    
Virgo virginum praeclara,
Mihi jam non sis amara: 
Fac me tecum plangere.     

Fac, ut portem Christi mortem
Passionis fac consortum, 
Et plagas recolere.     

Fac me plagis vulnerari
Fac me cruce inebriari, 
Et cruore Filii.  
  
Flammis ne urar succensus
Per te, Virgo, sim defensus
In die judicii.     

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
Da per Matrem me venire, 
Ad palmam victoriae.     

Quando corpus morietur,
Fac, ut animae donetur
Paradisi Gloria.

...and a sword will pierce even your own soul - to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
Luke 2:35
  
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