"A Feast of Joy..."

All creatures keep a feast of joy at the Resurrection of Jesus. Flowers spring up, meadows are again clothed in their rich verdure, and birds, now that gloomy winter is past, carol in sweet jubilation. The sun and moon, which mourned at Jesus' death, are brighter now than ever. The earth, that shook at his death, and seemed ready to fall to ruin, now puts on her richest green to greet her Risen God. - from a sequence in Missal of St. Gall, 9th century

Truly, nature sings of God's bounty in this season. The kids born in winter are growing in leaps and bounds, birds sing endlessly from dawn to dusk, and the sky, sometimes dark with threatening storms, then brilliant in a windswept blue, or fiery, or pink, with the beginnings or ends of days, reflects in all its temperaments the wonderful or terrible ways that God manifests his ordered beauty. Flowers are abundant, their petals seeming to hum with the buzz of bees or fluttered soft with the wind and butterflies' wings. The first rose in our Mary garden budded and bloomed right as our eldest daughter and son arrived home for Holy Week and Easter; its petals began to drop as the same two prepared to leave, somehow fitting to the bittersweetness of it all. Spring - and life, its first green being gold - seems chaotic and unpredictable, or too good to be true, or alternately too hard, but really all things replicate and grow according to their kind, and move according to His laws, and live or die as He deems fit. His mystery reigns and yet a universal order is foundational to all at all times. A beautiful thing is seeing creatures lower than men and angels bursting forth in joy and singing His praises, just at the time we celebrate the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and realize the promise of an eternal life of happiness for those who know, love, and serve Him in this world. 

Knowing, loving, and serving Him comes easier too, we have found, as we immerse ourselves more deeply in natural things. Much of that is just looking at the stars; one of our middle sons has poured through all of our star books and sky maps and has spent countless hours, late and wee, lying on a blanket with his little brothers in the field, mastering the wheeling constellations and pointing them out to his mother and father when the sun begins to set and the first twinklings can be seen. We can never doubt the invisible realities when we observe such magnificent and astounding visible things!

A few days ago we honored a favorite saint, St. George, with a proper-to-Eastertime feast and obstacle-course competition, and also with a little play retelling his story. We cherish the reminder that dragons are real and are monsters with whom a compromise cannot be struck, that the temptations of the world must always be resisted, and that by the Cross of Christ we shall ultimately triumph. Soon, we will honor Our Blessed Mother in May - with a traditional Marian procession and May Crowning. It is a lovely springtime gesture, filled with flowers, song, prayer, and typically peaceful reverie. Each year the fruits of our devotion to Mary, into whose care the Lord placed us Himself, grow in abundance, and we are always happy to gather with friends and family of good will to name the perfections of her character and beg her continual intercession. May we remain her steadfast children as she leads us along the humble way to the King!

St. George, ora pro nobis! Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis! To God, bounteous and loving Creator, all praise and honor and glory be given!