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WEDNESDAY THOUGHT 8/13/08

The Smile of Faith
 
As a child, I would watch my Grandmother Stella as she would recite the rosary quietly to herself every evening.  Her expression was not hopeful or needy, but calm, so deeply peaceful that I used to suspect she and the Virgin Mary were close friends having an intimate chat.
 
It was the quiet that I think I noticed most.  Her body barely stirred as she sat in a large, overstuffed chair in the semi-dark.  Her eyes closed, only her lips and fingers moved, as she recited the Hail Marys in a barely audible voice, her fingers moving over the beads of the rosary in her lap, and the barest smile on her face.  (I’d swear there was an inner glow that radiated from her, but memories from 50 years ago sometimes are not quite accurate.) 
 
My point:  I cannot find the words, but that inner stillness my grandmother carried, her simple faith, that light-up-your-life smile and her gentle, humble love, all I know is that I was blessed to expererience it.  May my faith and your faith someday be that solid and clear and powerfully quiet.  God bless. — jri
 
“All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin
looked intently at Stephen, and they
saw that his face was like the face of
an angel.”
        –    Acts 6:15