Here are two poems from my book Angels N Things which will be available

Christmas day. What a great present we have received!

love

Loretto Lou and Toto

THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Oh golden angel of the Christmas tide

With soft satin wings your reality

Those wings dipped deep in Yuletime pride

To shine atop upon our Christmas tree

And looking down on all below you see

Such innocence of childhood’s winsome smile

As little faces watch thee back with glee

And hope their wishes fulfilled in awhile

What joy in Christmas for an angel’s soul

To sit upon the family’s favored tree

And reminisce of Christmas’ of old

And know you’re alway part of family history

THE CHRISTMAS ANGELS

The Christmas Angels have gathered to sing

A song of the ancient holidays

With trappings modern of modern things

Like Santa and reindeers and loaded sleighs

With wreaths and stockings and decorated trees

They try to sing an ancient song

With stockings and candy canes and more that please

Our ears hear songs that don’t belong

Materialistic things seem everywhere

And things we seem to worship most

It’s no wonder that angels feel despair

Of Father Son and Holy Ghost

The spirit of Christmas was humbly born

And humbly walked in foot steps bare

Across a world filled with forlorn

He offered love in place of sad despair

And needing more to worship the simplicity

Of the humble babe born to be a king

For the greatest gift at Christmas time

Is to hear true song tha the angels sing

I spent 10 years teaching high school religion and 12 years in parish work, but I swear that it’s here in prison that I get to have the most fun–and I never know what the subject will be from moment to moment. Fits my lint trap brain, for certain.

Here’s a thought for you. Just as you micro-teach day in and day out, so do you offer Holy Sacrifice day in and day out. Not of course, in the same sense that a priest offers the Sacrifice of the Mass. Because, however, you are a member of the priesthood of all believers by virtue of your baptism into the Body of Christ, every micro-sacrifice of self that you make is an offering, holy and acceptable to God.

Years ago I was privileged to attend a retreat led by a Benedictine monk. He said his novice master taught him to think of every flat surface he encountered in the course of his day as an altar and the work that he did upon any given flat surface as a sacrificial offering. I have never forgotten that teaching.

If I am ironing clothes, then the ironing board is an altar and the work an offering. If I am at my desk writing (my profession, too), then my desk is an altar and the work an offering. Thinking of all one’s work in this way takes the sting out of the “what ifs” for me, because seen in the light of the altar and sacrifice, no work is more important than any other work. All work is an equally acceptable offering to God.

When my children were still small, there was a woman who loved to play the guitar and lead the singing in our prayer group. She too had small children at home. One night, a man came up to her after dthe meeting and said, “I have a word from the Lord for you. He says that He has given you a beautiful voice because he has called you out for music ministry.” She laughed and wisely said, “That may be so, but right now, He has called me to diaper changing and toilet cleaning ministry.”

That lesson has stayed with me too. God may use each of us in many different ways during the course of our lives. Our ministry of the moment, however, is usually right where we are. We seldom have to look any further than our own doorsteps to find the work He has prepared for us to do.

As I mentioned a while back I came upon your site in a search for info on Anam Cara. I am writing a book on angels and I wanted to include some of the less known ones. I grew up in Dublin as a child and came to America at nearly 10. My name Loretto is now linked with your site due to my facetious post. I then posted 3 angel poems so that I might redeem that first post. I now see I will be forever linked to your site. So I have been reading your more current posts.

I would just like to say that “To be an artist at 20 is to be a dreamer, to be an artist at 40 is to be an Artist.” You can be an artist in many ways and to be a writer certainly is one, so you are a true artist if you are still writing. Being a teacher is the highest form of artist as the best form of flattery is plagiarism. When people are influenced or follow you and you change even one mind you have accomplished a great goal. To be a teacher in a book store is humble and Christ like. Christ taught in simplicity with no money in his pocket, barely shoes on his feet. In this jet set world we have lost a lot of that simplicity. How nice to see it in you.

As for money and bigger goals, 5 years ago my husband and I gave up everything to follow the voice of spirit after 9/11. We convinced the Baltimore World Trade Center to let us shoot a local cable show from the Observation deck shining our television wave light out like a beacon across the world. The show is titled Top of the Morning. We are in our 1000 episode and we totally fund it ourselves while living on social security. We have won 14 Telly Awards for the show including Silvers. We have had some amazing guests to interview from Rosie O’Donnell to Bishop Desmond Tutu. Someday maybe you might come and be a guest. So if you build it they will come. Meanwhile keep up the good work of teaching and feeding the sheep and lambs from the humble pulpits of the site and the bookstore. My favorite film is Keys of Kingdom with Gregory Peck about one of the humblest priests in the world. I have a feeling if you had become a priest you would have been like him. But I think a lot of people are glad you are doing what you’re doing. Below is the poem I wrote after checking your site.

ANAM CARA

Oh walk with me oh friend of my soul
Upon the pathways of my life and see where I did go astray
With you beside me do I wonder how it happened?
That I should lose my way

But lost I am and have no one to find me if you are not there
And I can’t see you anymore as I did see you in my youth
When you did listen to my babble
And give it substance seeming truth

For if we pare the onion down there’s nothing there
And I have found the truth deceived in a cloak of love
Without a bosom of the soul
Nothing below and nothing up above
Except my God

It’s funny – all of the decisions I made in my 30s that I thought I might feel sorry about in my 40s haven’t made me sorry at all – just the opposite!! Even though things didn’t turn out at all like I thought they would.

I guess I started recognizing the fruitlessness in second guessing choices sometime in my 30s. I don’t know about things all coming together because that hasn’t been my experience at all. If anything, life has become far more chaotic. But, amazingly, that’s been OK. Chaos in my 40s doesn’t bother me like chaos in my 20s would have. And I think my teenage children are extremely grateful for that!

Nice post. Thank you!