Walking With My Brother

I read a piece recently on the six things every good Catholic household needs. I’ve also been reacquainting myself with our garden, Father — Yours and mine — after a too-long hiatus (a subject for another day). And, it’s May — Mary’s month. You’ve brought all these frayed ends together, Father, in a lovely plan for Our Lady.

Our fifth meditation is timely:

Have you no plans to interest you? Tell Me all about them. Do they concern your vocation? What do you think of? What would you like? Are you planning some pleasure for your mother, for your family, for your guardian? What do you wish to do for them?

During our worldwide retreat into ourselves by Your grace, You have given me the enthusiasm and the time and the resources I need to build a Marian garden. You’ve offered just the right place for it, too. It’s perfect along a heavily shaded and mercilessly ignored side of our house. It’s private, cool, and protected by an umbrella of trees.

And most of the basics — brick for the floor, a pedestal to hold Our Lady’s statue, even a metal bench — are already just laying around the yard waiting for their purpose to be better defined.

Add a simple trellis and some shade plantings, (especially meaningful for Marian devotion — bleeding hearts, lilies of the valley, Lenten rose), some crushed rock for the boggy path (that has needed help for some time), maybe some little LED lights. It’ll be lovely, Father! Thank You! Even the existing trailing ivy, which has to continually be removed from attaching itself to our foundation, can be trained to climb the trellis and find its new holy purpose.

What a wonderful project for this special month. Please bless my efforts, Holy Lord, and make it a beautiful and holy space. Amen