Praying to and through the Saints

Hail Mary full of grace! 

The Lord is with you. 

Blessed are you among women. 

And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, 

pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our deaths. 

Amen.

The Ave is one of my favorite prayers. It was most recently re-inscribed on and in my heart as the only words of prayer to bring me comfort during a particularly painful medical procedure.
Yet I remember being exposed to Protestant communities that sneered at catholic religiosity as papist or pope-ish - and these were not good things.
I also grew up in churches that piously affirmed the communion of saints using the Apostles' Creed. And it has always puzzled me that some Christians affirm the eternal life of the holy dead and affirm the gospel that "God is not God of the dead but the God of the living," and yet balk at nurturing and maintaining their relationships with their ancestors and saint (prophets and martyrs and all the host of heaven...).
I wonder that folk who will ask the earthly living to pray for them will not ask the heavenly living to pray for them. I imagine that the saints and ancestors are more faithful in prayer than we are here and that their prayers are purer and more direct than ours here. I also note how many folk talk to their departed, particularly at grave sites but do not consider that prayer.
I think people do not know what is prayer.
Pious protestations that prayer is reserved for God alone aside, prayer is simply conversation.
It seems that the former meaning of the word pray - simply to ask - seems to have morphed into to speak only to God, with no thought of what we are saying or what we mean.
I am so grateful for those whose live are eternal who whisper my name in prayer.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, 

pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our deaths. Amen.

Blessing the Virgin (A Repost)

15 August,
The Blessed Virgin Mary, BVM,
Ever-Blessed to me, Ever-Virgin to others
Mother of a Jewish martyr
Mother of God, Mother of Salvation, Mother of Redemption, Mother of Christianity
Her body, the intersection between Judaism and Christianity
Her womb a fountain of living waters
Paragon and archetype

I like to think that she was assumed in to heaven
In the scriptures, Enoch, Elijah and Jesus ascend
I like to think that she too tasted eternal life without the bitterness of death

It saddens me that so many have lost sight of the gift that is her life and witness. Accepting her as a human woman, with no supernatural element in her conception or birth – no immaculate conception – allows us to see her as fully human, fully woman. Not denying her sexual intimacy makes her more like us – we know that Jesus became like us but he was so different in so many ways from his conception to his life-after-death, we are not yet quite like him. There is, of course one way in which we cannot be like her, but none of us are exactly like another. We may not all be women, wives, mothers, or single parents (no one knows when or to where Joseph disappeared, but he never came back), but there is something compelling about her life and choices. And there is her love, the great love she shares with her son who loves us so dearly.

Elizabeth, the pregnant prophet composed the first lines of this prayer, another added the ending. These words give me peace and comfort in a way few others do:
Hail Mary, full of grace
the Lord is with you
Holy Mary
Mother of God
Pray for us now
and in the hour of our death. Amen.

In her own words that became the Word of God:
All generations call her blessed.
I do.

My Body Broken

Looking at Frida Kahlo's broken body
and counting my own bones...

I remembered this poem (from an episode of Cold Case of all things):

Tired, nickel-colored night
You can take my blood and keep it,
I ain't need it no more,
use my broken teeth to pave your street,
my splintered bones stomped for sand,
if this lead-footed man should once again leave me dead,
my body broken,
my soul would find a way,
oh, night, to dance with his girl again.