Mary's bread crumbs

  How long have I run from you?

This is my confession: I never "got" the rosary. In my mind praying the beads was for little grey haired ladies with nothing else to do. Mea Culpa. Repetitive prayers were sub standard in my snob's mind. Charismatic prayers, Centering Prayer , those were the ones that really changed a life. My Mother never graduated from high school and had a great devotion to Mary's beads. See what I mean? Mea maxima culpa.

Tears are forming at the thought of how an ungracious snob of a Catholic could still be called by Mary to her side.

It is a good thing that I journal or I would not have seen the clear path where her bread crumbs were strewn. It started with a dream in 2004. I was running on a beach and away from a person who should not have been in my life. I found my journal in the sand with three rosaries tucked inside.I took two out and throw the journal in the surf. I laid down on the beach with the surf rolling over my naked body fingering one of the rosaries. I can see myself smiling and happy.Then I said to a passerby: "It feels good to be free and clean."

Over the years , a few more dreams: I am lost in Staten Island and the bartender at Corky's bar tells me to go to Stella Maris High School where I will be helped. Stella Maris, Star of the Sea. My Mary. In another dream in Aberdeen ,Scotland, a neighbor comes to show me her beautiful sparkling white Mary statue that she won but I am more interested in finding the grey and white cat that seems to be lost. (I don't have a cat). .Four days later, I was reading in a windy, misty park on the Isle of Skye and a grey and white cat leapt into my arms and we snuggled like old friends until the rain started. 

The the last one in 2014 was so short, so vivid, I wish I could paint it. I am standing on a corner in New York City when I look up to see a huge colorful banner being unfurled down the front of a tall building. It is Christ the King. As I marveled, another banner was unfurled on a building next to it and it was Our Lady of Guadalupe. I heard a voice say: "Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, pray for us."

I was glad for the dreams but had no idea why I was getting them. Then it became so clear. For some reason, that very day I went to the FaceBook site of a Buddhist writer whose books on haiku have enchanted me,  Clark Strand. I wondered what he was up to. I found his page and was stunned to find that his profile picture was Our Lady of Guadalupe. This Buddhist who was raised by Presbyterians had been found by Mary too and started an on-line rosary group. I finally got what was being asked.

Since then I have prayed the rosary daily for the desires of my heart. I know she hears, I know she wants to be connected to us. I know she intercedes, her work on earth never done. And I wonder how much my Mother, who prayed for me daily, had to do with all this. 

Mary, Queen of the Angels, pray for us.