I love this painting. It's such a peaceful little moment in the Divine Infancy.
Our Lady was NOT an unwed mother. She and Joseph were betrothed. Under the betrothal system the bride and groom wouldn't live together until the wedding which would happen as soon as the groom had the household ready and the date was one that good for all the parties involved, but to put it plainly, they had all the rights and duties of marriage. You do not contemplate divorcing a fiancee, you divorce a wife. If you want to make an unwed mother feel better about herself you could tell her about St. Margaret of Cortona but do not her that the pure mother of God was once just like her and things worked out...
Jesus was NOT an illegal alien. His parents fled local strong man, Herod but they were moving from one Roman territory to another. It was like moving to Pennsylvania because things in Virginia got too hot for you with the local constabulary, something that happened to one of Rocky relatives. No matter where you went in Rome's territory, no matter what language was spoken or what gods the people were enthralled by, your overlord was Caesar Augustus.
The next big pedophilia scandal of the future will occur because people showed willful stupidity in the present. One day, men, not even born yet will curse the people who allowed this horror to take root.
I only find statues with electricity in Italian or Polish parishes in Baltimore and Pennsylvania so it's always a little thrill when I see them.
I found the most gorgeous antique holy card blog. Holy Reflections has prayer pages, crafts and samples of the restoration work that the site owner does. I downloaded a card and then laminated it. Rocky and I gave them as gifts to his fellow ushers.
Do you have a good priest? Stand by him. Pray for him.
My parents subscribed to National Geographic because they thought it was educational for me. I would spend hours reading the articles and enjoying the photos but sometime in my teen years I stopped reading it because instead being about anthropology, wildlife and earth sciences it became political and strident. Now it's showcasing victims of Munchhausen's Syndrome by proxy.
