All Shall Be Well

The Window in Lady Julian's Cell
St. Julian's Church, Norwich

Remembering St. Juliana of Norwich today. I read about half of her Revelations on the interminable A train journey out to Ozone Park to visit Chiarelli's tat shop with Amanda, Sacristan and FishnGrl on Saturday. I found a red votive light to replace the one we broke from the hanging lamps but alas they were out of stock. I then raced back (with FishnGrl in tow to show her the church) to help Douglas replace all of the nave chandelier globes with new ones, all 64. I thought it would make a big difference in the lighting since the new ones are alot whiter and a bit larger, but it's a very subtle improvement.

I was just remembering my first Julian feast at St. Ignatius 22 years ago and hearing Fr. Stowe tell the parable about the hazelnut, which was such a revelation back then. This past weekend was Cursillo #84 and it was dedicated to St. Juliana of Norwich. I ran up to Mariandale Saturday evening after setting up for the May festivel in honor of Our Lady, since I was MC. It was the 10th anniversary of my Cursillo weekend and Janet Hunt, one of my reunion group from St. Luke's decuria #61, was lay rector for this one. Barbara Crafton was head spiritual director, also from that decuria. Bill Baker and Kathy Chase are the other two members of our group and together with some other 4th day angels we descended upon Mariandale to set up the Agape party and visitation. I have been on team 9 times but had never set up for the Agape and visitation before, so it was fun. We had about 114 candles on the altar and watched from the secret loft until all had left the chapel and we could start cleaning up. Attended the team meeting afterward with leftovers from the Agape and got spotted by Kathleen, one of our candidates who came into the team room by mistake and caught me sipping wine before getting quickly herded out by a cha cha. They told her it was an apparition. We took the midnight train which was very delayed back to Manhattan and finally got home about 2:00 am.

On Sunday I was MC and rather tired but it was a lovely May festival in honor of Our Lady in spite of no flowers at all at Her shrine. It was good to have Fr. Bodie back with us for the summer at least. Afterward I headed back up to Mariandale with Gilberto for Clausura, which was very well attended this time, with 20 candidates and lots of cursillistas. By all accounts it was a very spirit-filled Cursillo despite the sorrow of losing our beloved Cursillo brother and Janet's sponsor, Dan Gray, on Thursday evening. He was well prayed into God's arms by the team and somehow Janet carried on bravely but the sadness was evident. Kathleen, SrT and Rob had a very blessed weekend and no one got hurt. We heard all about it on the way back home and at Tre Venezie with Gary and Vera, their sponsors. De Colores!