Aurora Borealis

We were supposed to meet up with some of the folks from the pro-life commitee after they got finished with this afternoon’s annual Life Chain down at the cathedral.  But the benediction service following Life Chain must have been very brief because they were done much earlier than expected and weren’t interested in waiting until the pizza place opened at 5:00.  So just the family went.  Agent Murphy struggled to take an afternoon nap, but he still managed to be mostly happy at the restaurant.  (A kid’s birthday party - 8 kids and 8 adults - came in right after us, so even if he’d decided to be cranky and loud, it wouldn’t have mattered.)  Good food, and we’re glad to see this neighborhood pizzeria is doing good business, and we were very excited to see an ice cream shop is “coming soon” across the street.

In other news, all the letters from Agent Murphy’s name puzzle bench are currently accounted for.  It’s good he has his whole name back!

Today we made it to the prayer vigil for the first time since a few weeks before Agent Murphy’s birth. We attempted to go a couple of weeks ago, but we’d barely gotten on the road when it started pouring. It’s one thing for us to tough it out through the rain, but quite another for Agent Murphy. Today the weather was beautiful.  He behaved wonderfully and had his first chance to play with the rosary his godmother gave him.  But he was a little too sleepy to eat much when the time came.

After a stop at home, we headed off to lunch at Los Bravos with J from my MBA program.  It was her first time to meet the Agent.  As we hoped, he took a nice nap.  Upon returning home, he just downed 10 ounces of milk - his largest intake in a single sitting ever.  And we read about Tootle the train, part of an anniversary collection of Golden Books from J.  Good fun.

So the pro-life committee had our monthly meeting today and decided on this as the prayer from the committee to run in the parish bulletin for Mothers Day weekend:

A Prayer for Mothers

Good and Gentle God, we pray in gratitude for our mothers who have joined with you in the wonder of bringing forth new life. You who became human through a woman, grant to all mothers the courage they need to face the uncertain future that life with children always brings.

Give them the strength to love and to be loved in return, not perfectly, but humanly. Give them the faithful support of husband, family and friends as they care for the physical and spiritual growth of their children. Give them joy and delight in their children to sustain them through the trials of motherhood. Most of all, give them the wisdom to turn to you for help when they need it most.

Dear Lord, let me honor my mother if she is living and remember her in prayer if she is dead. Pour down your grace on her and on all mothers on this day dedicated to them.

Amen.

We purchased 1,000 bottles and distributed 645 in spring 2007. 312 were returned (48.4%), leaving us with 667. Feb. 1, 2008, gave 150 bottles to Mary Anne Shumata to run the program at her church during Lent.