Two Months since her Burial ... on Mary's Watch

Today is October 27, exactly 2 months since Mom was buried.

Saturday. A Holy Saturday as all Saturdays are preeminently Holy Saturdays since the Holy Saturday that Our Lord lay Dead and Waiting for Resurrection in the Darkness of His Tomb.

It is also Saturday, Mary's Day, and I was grateful to see this morning a beautiful full moon in the west as I took the dog for a walk in Woodward Park.

I got up early after a mostly sleepless night ... and it was still very dark. The moon was exquisitely bright and looked like George MacDonald's Moon in Phantastes or Lilith that looks over the earth with such kind solicitude.

The dog and I walked along trees and bushes that were black against a barely emerging light in the east, that gradually turned into a soft, penetrating saffron by the time we were done walking. It was as if Mary the Moon were watching over the earth from the West ... watching over me, then, and the dog ... as she and all Creation awaited the Rising of the Sun in the East.

Hail Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy
Our Life, our sweetness, and our hope
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve
to thee do we send up our sighs
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us
and after this our exile
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb
Jesus
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God
That we may be made worthy
of the promises of Christ.