Happy Star Wars Day!

All my Catholic friends are posting about May and Mary.  Thank you (all of you who do that!) We will be donning the blue tablecloth and crowning our Blessed Mother.

However, many people do not know it is Star Wars Day.  Get it?  May the Fourth?   "May the Force be with you."

The phrase dates back to at least 1979, on the day Margaret Thatcher was elected Britain's first woman prime minster. Her party took out a newspaper ad in the London Evening News that said "May the Fourth be with you, Maggie. Congratulations."
 
Typical festivities consist of inviting fellow Star Wars-obsessed friends to stay over, and then watching the series in succession. Lots of snacks, bring lightsabers and Star Wars-themed toys. Lightsaber fights in the early morning hours optional.

We'll be having drinking blue milk and eating Princess Leia Buns for breakfast.  Lunch will consist of Han-burgers and Tusken Raider Tators. We'll snack on Yoda Caramel Corn (yes, it's green.)  Dinner will be Jango Fett-ucine with Jar-jar salad (made with ingredients that come from a jar like marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers) with Carbonite Jell-o for dessert (and yes, I'm putting an action figure in the Jell-o) or Wookie Cookies.  Tough call, need to appeal to the masses, may just make both!

Have a space-cial day!

Signs

At Mass last night, our priest spoke of signs.  He said, in particular, the image of Jesus walking with St. Peter on the water has been given to him on which to contemplate.  Do you get signs?

The clearest one I ever had was when I was rocking my first born when he was 14 months old.  He was overstimulated and would not go to sleep.  So, he asked me to please rock him and sing.  I ran out of songs and the one that popped into my mind was "Were you there?"  As I was singing the song, he relaxed.  He fell asleep, I thought, finally.  When I stopped singing, he started humming the tune, indicating he wanted me to continue.  So, I did, humming, instead of singing.  Soon, he was limp, lying in my body as our Dear Lord did on his mother's lap when taken from the cross.  Then, that image came to my mind.  I couldn't, and didn't want to get it out of my mind.  The message I got, and frankly needed at the time, was you are their mother until death, yours or theirs.  I'm not sure why that was the message, but I also felt immense, uncontrollable sorrow.  I asked Our Lady to help me, since she'd been through the worst.  I felt so ill-equipped to manage this job. 

I remember that feeling of a limp child on my lap.  Eleven times children of mine have undergone surgery.  Eleven times I have held them while they are put under, feeling their little bodies go limp, limp in a way they can't when they fall asleep naturally.  And, instead of sorrow, each time I've reached out to Our Lady.  Each time I have had to entrust them to Our Mother to hold them while I couldn't.  Each time, they came out fine.

What signs have you had?