In Times of Plenty, Beware the Golden Calf
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On a particularly stressful day, when three people were lined up at my office door, when the phone was ringing and the voicemail light was flashing, and with deadlines fast approaching, I stopped myself for a brief moment, and thinking about the pressures and distractions a workplace has on our spiritual lives, I lifted my eyes to our Blessed Mother.
Dear Mary, our Mother, our morning rise and evening rest, our radiant purity and everlasting beauty, our steadfast surety and perpetual comfort, oh Mary, oh Mother, dear Mother, pray for me.
In the midst of the rush of my day, amid the great clamor of daily routines; of details and deadlines; of duties and responsibilities; of demands of my time, attention, energy, thoughts, words and deeds; of the relentless rancor of a world filled with pitfalls and snares that bombard so relentlessly that they seep into consciousness wherein even dreams are tarnished by the tremendous corroding force that spew from those around us whose “teeth are spears and arrows, their tongue a sharpened sword,” and where “no truth can be found in their mouths, their heart is all mischief, their throat a wide-open grave, all honey their speech,” I stop and turn to you.
With inner stillness while the torrents commotion surround me, I see your gleaming face; I feel your loving arms; I am lifted and held up by your maternal embrace; I am strengthened by your ever-presence; I am assured by your intercessions.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed are thou, among women, and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Thank you Mary, our Mother, dear Mother, oh Immaculate.
The day became no less stressful, no less busy, but I was at ease and reassured.
Dean P. Johnson is in the Diaconate Candidacy Program for the Diocese of Camden and is a member of Mary Mother of Mercy Parish, both in New Jersey. He holds a BA in English and an MA in Writing both from Rowan University. He has had essays published in newspapers across the country including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Houston Chronicle, Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger, Courier Post (Southern NJ), and Philadelphia Inquirer among many others. He also has had creative nonfiction, short stories and poetry appear in several literary magazines including Chronogram, Foundling Review, JMWW Journal, ArtWord Quarterly, Wolf Head Quarterly, Sylvia, Circle Magazine and The Fourth River among several others.
His first novel, MOONDREAMS, and two collections of essays, CONFESSIONS OF A FRUITCAKE CONVERT and THEY DON’T CALL IT A NUMBER TWO FOR NOTHING, are available as ebooks on Kindle. His poetry chapbook, Pyramids in Nature, is currently out of print.
Dean also has pieces in several books including The Pressures of Teaching (Kaplan), Viewpoints (Wadsworth), and Writing the Critical Essay: Smoking (Greenhaven).
Dean P. Johnson is an administrator and teacher of English at Camden Academy Charter High School in Camden, NJ and is an adjunct professor of writing at Rowan University and Camden County College. Dean lives in New Jersey with his wife of 25 years and their five children along with a Basset hound and cat all of whom provide an endless parade of writing material.
Read more at
http://catholicstarherald.org/putting-the-saints-to-work-on-a-regular-basis
