Saturday, August 16, 2008

A Deep Breath

It's been quiet on here, hasn't it? I have been blogging, but mostly on Every Waking Hour (my journal) and Schola et Studium (my planning and record-keeping blog). Our school year started last week with my 15 year old's first building-school experience and will continue this week as we start our homeschool year, and return my oldest to college for his senior year at Thomas Aquinas College.

At this point the flow of this post seems to encourage some sort of retrospective/ perspective about the changes in our lives, but I can't seem to do that yet, since I feel like I'm still in the middle of it right now. I don't have a sense of where things will go from here, and am still getting used to the ongoing changes. I still feel like the Holy Spirit is moving so fast past me that I can't get a breath. (Our vacation by the lake, and the visit of our friends, was like the calm in the eye of the storm -- "calm" might not be the right word, but it was a sort of retreat and respite in a way).

The picture is Gustave Courbet, Le Coup de Vent (Gust of Wind).

The 14th was the feast day of St Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life at Auschwitz to save another prisoner. If you had thought ahead, which I didn't, you could have made the total act of consecration to the Immaculata yesterday, on the Feast of the Assumption. The next chance will be September 8th, or September 15th. Here is the Rule of Life he composed, which I have had posted on my bulletin board ever since Kolbe Academy sent it several years ago. I always come back to it when things are going in a troublesome way, and so obviously, it's time again!




All things considered, I think Kolbe will be the proper choice for our patron for this school year. ...along with St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), who also died at Auschwitz. Ooh, this last was a sudden inspiration, but I think it's a good one, since formerly, I was considering St Teresa of Avila and St Benedict as possibilities, and Edith Stein's chosen name incorporates both of them. Serendipity, or the breath of the Spiritus Sanctus.

It seems to me that with 3 graduates moving out into the "real world" in one way or another, and 1 highschooler facing the peculiar world of the rural public high school, that these two modern saints will be great intercessors for us in matters I can't yet even foresee.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the way you have a patron saint for each year. I didn't know there was a saint who was a Holocaust victim. Fascinating!

What is the painting you have at the top of this post? It's beautiful.

Willa said...

It's The Gust of Wind by Gustave Courbet. It was in an art book that my older kids were looking through the other day, and I liked the way it looked!