April 2023

Long before I knew it, the fourth station of the cross— Jesus meets his mother— imprinted itself mind, heart, and soul so that, decades later, when I meaningfully embraced the stations of the cross, I felt compelled to share the prayer from my childhood.

After dad died, mom would pray in bed with my little brother and me every single night.  “What happens if I fall asleep before we finish the rosary?” I’d ask.

“The Blessed Mother will finish it for you,” she’d whisper before starting a rhyming prayer that I absolutely loved.  And, even though I didn’t understand all the words, I found comfort in the cadence, tried to keep up, and visualized the story in bold colors until I fell asleep.

Of course, time passed and life changed.  I forgot to ask about the prayer until a couple of years before mom died.  “Teach me the rhyming prayer.”

“How does it go?” she asked.  “Tell me some of the words.”  I treasured its memory but recalled only one line: “Hortelanito, por Dios, dime la pura verdad: si Jesús de Nazaret por aquí lo has visto pasar.”  Mom had no idea what I was talking about!

Over the years I tried to no avail to find the prayer online.  One day I’ll meet someone versed in Spanish prayers, I thought.  I’ll find the prayer when the time is right.  Besides, the memory of us praying together still lingered vividly, and that was good enough.  Then, out of the blue, I started wondering about mom’s prayer again and, suddenly, a rose leaf fell on this Chicken Little’s tail.  I can email Sr. Marta!  I’ll bet she knows the prayer!  Only I wanted to spell hortelanito correctly, so I looked online and— what do you know?!!  I found mom’s prayer!

April mailing (English & Spanish)

   

   

Prayerful thoughts

Dear God, we… praise you for the many gifts that you have given us.  We surrender our control, seeking to follow Jesus’s model of humility while striving to love as he loved us.  We recognize that suffering comes with love, that great love and great suffering can transform us, but that neither experience is necessarily easy.  We offer our petition to you, praying that we might have the strength of our convictions, the hope of our faith, and the joy of that hope when times are difficult.  May we always place our trust in you and commend our whole selves to your care.  In doing so, may we always proclaim, in word and deed: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done!” (Daniel P. Horan, OFM).

My Lord and my God, under the loving eyes of our mother, we are making ready to accompany you along this path of sorrow which was the price paid for our redemption.  We wish to suffer all that you suffered, to offer you our poor, contrite hearts, because you are innocent; and, yet, you are going to die for us who are the only really guilty ones.  My mother, Virgin of Sorrows, help us to relive those bitter hours which your son wished to spend on earth so that we who were made from a handful of clay may finally live… in the freedom and glory of the children of God.

O Mother of Sorrows, who could express the cruel anguish of this moment?  The same child that you once wrapped in swaddling clothes amidst unspeakable joy, you now wrap silently in his burial shroud.  Your tears mingle with the blood and dirt that covers his broken body.  But even in this moment your trust in his promise did not die.  Your mourning was not without hope, for you knew that he would rise again from his grave just as he promised.  Through this bitter sword of sorrow obtain for us the grace to believe with unshakable hope in the victory of our Lord, even in the darkest moments of life.

Our thoughts turn to the passion and death of our Lord, and we long to share his pain with him.  What is the pain of Jesus?  It is the pain of loving and not being loved in return.  He has loved us with an everlasting love, and what do we give him in return?  We allow our minds to be preoccupied with little things and so spend many hours without thinking of Jesus.  And yet our hearts and minds, bodies and souls, belong only to him.  Let us meditate on the sufferings of Christ each day (Heidi Hess Saxton).

We meditate before, during, and after everything we do.  The prophet says, “I will pray, and then I will understand.”  This is the way we can easily overcome the countless difficulties we have to face day after day, which, after all, are part of our work.  In meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in others (St. Charles Borromeo).

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