Key Ingredients of Love and Marriage That Last

 How beautiful this is! Love is so simple, and so easy, for those who know the secrets. (To find the secrets, click on the third word of this post.)

For every beauty

“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.”

--Ivan Panin

Love

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.
-- Author Unknown

Feast of Saint Anne

Good Saint Anne, pray for us.

No words

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

 --Dag Hammarskjold

Three Favourite Prayers

Originating in Great Britain at Mac's blog address at http://mulier-fortis.blogspot.com/, there is a prayer meme making the rounds of  this virtual world for which Father John Abberton has "tagged"yours truly: it is an honour for which I thank him.  The rules of the meme are these:
"Name your three favourite prayers, and explain why they're your favourites.Then tag five bloggers - give them a link, and then go and tell them they have been tagged. Finally, tell the person who tagged you that you've completed the meme. The Liturgy and the Sacraments are off limits here. I'm more interested in people's favourite devotional prayers."
 Here are my three choices:
1) Written by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who is very dear to me, as a meditation on the immensity of the Love of God:
Suscipe
'Receive, O Lord, all my liberty. Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Whatsoever I have or hold, You have given me; I give it all back to You and surrender it wholly to be governed by Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.' (Spiritual Exercises, #234)

2) Saint Raphael is another one of my favorite saints. Here is a prayer to ask his help:
O Raphael, lead us towards those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us! Raphael, Angel of Happy Meetings, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for! May all our movements, all their movements, be guided by your Light and transfigured by your Joy.
Angel Guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the Feet of Him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired, crushed by the separations and sorrows of earth, we feel the need of calling to you and of pleading for the protection of your wings, so that we may not be as strangers in the Province of Joy, all ignorant of the concerns of our country.
Remember the weak, you who are strong--you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder, in a land that is always peaceful, always serene, and bright with the resplendent glory of God. 


3) Since I have a great love for Our Lady, this prayer of Saint Maximilian Kolbe is one of my favorites:
My life, my every moment, my death,
Where, when and how it will befall me,
My entire eternity:
It is all Thine,
O Immaculata!
Take everything into Thy hands,
as it pleases Thee.

The five bloggers I tag to carry on this meme are:
Dymphna at http://dymphnaswell.blogspot.com/
Magister Christianus at http://bedlamorparnassus.blogspot.com/
John Whitehead at http://onceiwasacleverboy.blogspot.com/   
David Werling at http://arsorandi.blogspot.com/
Andrew at http://recusantcorner.blogspot.com/

Another one of my favorite prayers, one to my Guardian Angel,  is posted below. May God bless you and Our Lady protect you all.



  

Go forth

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow