The conclusion to a Feast of the Assumption weekend last night in Little Italy.  It allows recollection on where I am and where I am going.  Last year, it was one of my fondest memories in regards to moments with Ann.  Lauren also attended, my first meeting with her.  This year I attended with people associated with St Paul Shrine.  Carol committed to accompany, however once again she changed plans the day of the event.  The previous day, she journeyed to Carey, Ohio to attend celebrations at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation.  It was a hot weekend and due to large crowds she was forced to sleep in her car.  I was disappointed when she broke our engagement, yet understood her exhaustion, her not wanting to be out late, to retire early in her own bed and with air conditioning.  It was a hot weekend.  She was polite and considerate.  Being overly dramatic, I whined to God about the quality of women He placed within my life, convinced the women I encountered I could not count on for stability, feeling that I must accept that women just did not find me attractive, women did not enjoy spending time with me.  Mary called and her presence soothed.  I was grateful I invited her during morning mass.  She told me she arraigned others from St Paul Shrine to meet us.  The night was filled with people, thronging masses everywhere throughout the streets.  People seeking a religious experience, others socializing, some drinking, many eating Italian food, crowds having fun.  Bodies packed Holy Rosary church.  Harmonized voices lifted the responses and hymns within the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to a rousing crescendo.  Inspiringly, I recognized the woman reading scripture.  It was the woman I recently ran into at Cain Park playing tennis, Kathy, a former associate from the recovery world of Paul, the lawyer and intellectual gatherer of interesting people.  She made her way through the crowd after mass to say hello.  I introduced her to my friends from St Paul Shrine.  We all settled into conversation, before Kathy excused herself, informing us tomorrow, Monday, was her first day back to school as an elementary school teacher.  Kathy mentioned she said hi to Paul and everyone for me, stating the group’s interest in me, their combined enthusiasm to see me.  I would enjoy joining them for a gathering.  Mary and I made our way to eat Italian food, separating from the others.  We would spend the rest of the evening together, staying until late, just standing and watching people for the most part.  Wrapping the evening up as midnight approached, we walked to the car.  Mary spoke about her days as a religious sister in a convent.  I told her about my concentration upon the virtue of patience.  She laughed heartily, telling me about her temper issues, her tendency to suffer eruptions of anger and wrath.  It plagued her during her consecrated life.  I never knew she pursued the religious life.  The idea she endured a bad temper also surprised me.  Mary is one of the calmest persons I have ever been around.  I associated it with her Filipino disposition and religious devotion.  Her mature contentment and state of peace can only be attained by one proficient and practiced in prayer.  Mary possesses the ability to provide company while demanding absolutely nothing from me.  Silence, her contentment to be with me, her simplicity, imprint profoundness.  The walk back to the car, and the drive to Mary’s home, conversation centered upon detachment.  Mary told me how she suffered from a severe sense of detachment from the world.  She suffered through an intense distance between her and everything she encountered.  Beyond an intellectual idea, purely a fact, it is a harsh reality for her.  A retired librarian, single throughout life, she goes through life alone, active socially, yet apart from the world, centered upon God  I understood the importance of the two of us being left alone once again.  I threw all these women’s name into this post in order to establish the distance pervading my life.  Emotionally I can be aroused, yet in my core something is drawing me deeper, into an abandonment and comfort with simply and solely concentrating upon God.  Nothing else in life is able to penetrate my prayer life.  Mary is the same.  With no bitterness–through, with, and in love, I observe the world, pleased, yet desiring for so much more.  Standing amidst the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd outside the church after the procession, singing Salve Regina, I felt overwhelmed with charity and compassion.  Dropping Mary off, I knew the proper lady accompanied me for the evening.

St Paul Shrine

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
which God Himself has reserved
from the beginning
for those who love Him.

A poem by St Clare on her Feast day.

Vince Lombardi, wisdom embodied within a football coach, stressed that a team struggling must always return to fundamentals.  The simplest aspects of the game must be reviewed, practiced, concentrated upon and engaged as the foundation of action.  The perfection of little things makes great things possible.  I feel the need to return to the fundamentals of St. John of the Cross.  I have discovered a fresh translation of ‘Ascent of Mount Carmel’ by an intriguing Jewish author Henry L. Carrigan Jr..  Fundamentals.  Pope Leo the XIII in his social justice encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’, emphasizes that organizations, allegorically individuals, in times of strife must return to that which gave them birth.  In regards to all things, that which gives birth is God.  I right myself, placing myself back on track toward unification with God through faith, hope, and charity.

Running, preparing for Saturday’s 5K, I jogged upon a former acquaintance playing tennis at Cain Park.  I recognized her instantly, although I was wrong with her name.  She associates with a high profile lawyer I use to run with in recovery circles.  The woman is a humble devout individual, athletic and quite impressive in her demeanor and disposition.  Her and her tennis friend were obliging in conversation.  She stressed that I was welcome to return to their gatherings.  Saturday they are holding a morning discussion on an encyclical of Pope Francis.  As I walked past a second time, she hollered out the encyclical involved forgiveness, although I think it is ‘Lumen Fidei’, the Light of Faith.  I pleasantly contemplate a testing of the waters for returning to an old social world.  I am delighted how instantly I recognized the woman’s face, a joy sprouting, while easily placing an identity to her smiling continence.