Showing posts with label Christmas Holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Holiday. Show all posts

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Ave Maria ~Placido Domingo & Michael Bolton - Nana Mouskouri






Monday's Mourning Ministry

Ave Maria

~Placido Domingo, Michael Bolton - Nana Mouskouri

~contributed by Grieving Mother, Debbie Simone Curti





Listening to Ave Maria today, thanks to a "treasured sister" Debbie Simone Curti, a fellow grieving mother, I cried. I often wonder how God could have called me to bear such pain in this lifetime as to go through the loss of my only daughter in the prime of her life. I think for the first time, I realized more of the depth of pain and loss to which God called mother Mary, 

not only to bear the Son of the living God amidst others' false perceptions of her scandalous behavior, 

but also to raise our very Savior - bonding with Him from babyhood to childhood to teen age to young adulthood, 

only to have to face the most horrible form of stealing her Child away from her by merciless prejudice, persecution. and priestly power-struggle committed against

her Son who had done no harm, committed no sin, perpetrated no crime, and 

yet was viciously beaten, mocked, and 

killed as a villainous criminal by human and religious volitional crime, the seed that can generate the worst-of-all trauma to a mother's heart… 



I had always known God had so honored Mary by calling her to bear His Son, but the song caused me to reconcieve the call that included not only the greatest honor for Mary, but along with that Honor, He had also called her to bear the most Sacred Trust, of loving, even when that love would bear the worst pain a mother could bear. 

As Mary was called to bear the Christ Child, and yet along with that, called to bear the world's worst suffering, it puts my suffering into a whole new perspective...

Thank you {{{Debbie}}} for sharing this song with me today.
Thinking of you and your precious {{{Christy}}} with love...

This was Debbie's note to her friends on Facebook:


"December 8th is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I am not sure how I would have survived this tragedy without my belief in Mary. She gave birth to a child, loved him, lost him, and kept her strength. She has been my inspiration (if you want to call it that )_sometimes I go to church and just sit in front of her statue and cry but I get through the day.. Thank GOD for our faith.. The music is beautiful.. Listen a minute.. It will bring you peace."

~Debbie Simone Curti, Grieving Mother








AVE MARIA

~Placido Domingo & Michael Bolton - Nana Mouskouri


Ave Maria
Ave Maria
Vergin del ciel
Sovrana di grazie e madre pia
Accogli ognor la fervente preghiera
Non negar
A questo smarrito mio amor
Tregua nel suo dolor!
Sperduta l'alma mia ricorre a te
E piena di speme si prostra ai tuoi pie
T'invoca e attende la vera pace
che solo tu puoi donar
Ave Maria!
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Maria, gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Ave Ave Dominus
Dominus tecum,
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus
et benedictus fructus ventris
ventris tui, Iesus.
Ave Maria.


Translation of the Italian lyrics: 


Ave Maria
I call out to you Mary
Virgin of the sky
Monarch of graces and devout mother
Accept the fervent prayer of everybody
Do not refuse
To this person who released his love
Truce in his pain!

My lost soul turns to you
And full of repentance, humbles at your feet,
It invokes you and awaits the true peace
That only you can give
I call out to you Maria
Ave Maria, full of grace
Maria, full of grace
Maria, full of grace

Hail, Hail God
Your God
Be blessed among the women
And blessed
And blessed be the product of your womb
Your womb, Jesus.

Ave Maria.











Video: http://youtu.be/pRDIggpHL-w

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Wednesday's Woe - After the Holiday's Distractions... Reality Sets In




Angie ("GiGi") and Ellie in her new "Jumperoo"

(with many blankets underneath so she could reach the floor to jump!!!)



Wednesday's Woe


After the Holiday's Distractions...

Reality Sets In



We wisely spent a very quiet Christmas Day together, the two of us, alone... because as it turns out, I was unable to sleep AT ALL on Christmas Eve night (and it wasn't from being excited about "Santa Claus"...), so I just got up and cleaned up all the messy tax papers that I had been collecting over the past five years...!


On Christmas Day, I finally went to bed and slept all of three hours! Later, our son Rollin, daughter-in-law Stephanie, and grandbaby Ellie dropped by around 10 p.m., and we had a sweet time together, albeit a short visit! (Nathan had already visited with us the week before.) The next day, we went by to enjoy more time with them and had a delightful time together with them watching 4 1/2-month-old Ellie enjoy our present, her new "jumperoo"!


After our visit together, Tommy and I left and went by the cemetery to finally put up a little Christmas Tree for Merry Katherine, a little angel, and an arrangement of snowy pine limbs with a red, glittery butterfly "flying" above all. We had a roller coaster of emotions... gathering the cemetery items before our family-togetherness visit about sent Tommy under... such a contrast of worlds. It was all he could do to overcome the sadness and incredible "downness" that came over him enough to allow himself to enjoy our first-and-only grandbaby's first Christmas. Merry Elizabeth is Merry Katherine's namesake, but we call her "Ellie" for short.


But soon, we were there, and Baby "Ellie's" delighted cries over her Christmas present from us, a Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo (that had all sorts of bells and whistles, and animals all around the jumperoo) that she discovered could help her jump every time her feet bounced to the floor, seemed to "magically" bounce us out of our grief stupor.


Then, when we left, and I saw my baby girl's picture on a tomb stone, it was my turn to plummet... away from pleasant distractions, and back to our reality...


So I guess we had a bouncing time today too, but it wasn't a "bouncing-good time" like Ellie's!!!


Isn't it interesting how we can go from moments of happiness and then starkly to the, "Oh Yeah..." moments that bring our world tumbling down again? Are these a "How Could We Forget, even if for a moment?" moments, or are they momentary but lovely diversions back into life? Whatever you call it, they are reminders our lives really never will be the same...



Ellie in her Christmas p.j.s ~ don't miss the Reindeer feet!!!


"That" look of delight!!!



Rollin, baby Ellie, and Stephanie,

practicing for their parts in our church's Christmas morning play as

Joseph, "Baby Jesus," and Mary!


Their Christmas card :o)








Pictures, thanks to Rollin and Stephanie Prince

Monday, December 26, 2011

Tuesday's Trust - Face To Face





Tuesday's Trust


Face To Face





In the darkness of this light,

I cannot see.

In the starkness of Death's Night,

I only grieve.

Yet Light came down on Christmas Day

To rescue me.

Love reaches down, a heart-beat away

And nurtures me.

Though I feel His Love all around,

I cannot see.

He speaks His love without a sound,

And speaks to me.

Yet One Day, I'll see Him face to face:

He embraces me!

He wipes all tears from off my face,

And smiles at me!

Love came down at Christmas time

That we might see;

He gives to us until that time

Eyes of faith to see.



Now we see but a poor reflection;

then we shall see face to face.

1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV







Poem - Face to Face - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/25/2011

Scripture from New International Version