Little Happiness at Work

The past two weeks at the law firm have been very stressful. Considering the social justice aspect of the class action law suit I am working on, I have been feeling extra spiritual pressure to help our 80,000 clients. 3, 082 of them could not be located to be sent incredibly important affidavits or they returned the affidavit incorrectly (making them useless). 

My boss put me in charge of getting those affidavits back to those 3,082 people that have been mistreated by insurance companies during Hurricane Katrina. Keep in mind, these people are elderly, poor, uneducated, disabled, or illiterate too. It was a big responsibility.

Alas, it has been accomplished! With a little extra grace and patience, all 3,082 have been located and have had affidavits mailed to them. 

And my brother and I stuffed and processed every single one of them.

WHEW!

Now that that phase of the class action is over, I can relax and start enjoying my job and summer. (Hopefully this will include more blog posts)

During my Dorito break last Friday, I wandered into the kitchen and opened a bag of the cheesy treat - which, by the way, comes in spicy flavors now. Sitting at the floral-topped table, I glanced over the the stove,

 where many meals are cooked by the sole female attorney in the office, and saw this:

Isn't that a nice reminder?

And later on in the day, while opening the mail I came across this stamp:

So the week ended well at the firm and hopefully we will be receiving those 3,082 affidavits back in the mail in the upcoming weeks. 

Maybe they will have nice stamps.

Happy Mother's Day

Honoring our Mother in Heaven

Since the beginning of the month of May, I have been going to the May Crownings of the various churches I attend - one in Alabama and one in Louisiana.

On May 3rd, to celebrate the close of CCD, the children from all the grades came together to honor Mary at my parish in Alabama.

St. Ignatius Parish

Mobile, Alabama

Unfortunately, it being CCD, few children showed up for the final class time and the ones that did forgot about the May Crowning. Some did come with their families and brought flowers from their gardens, which was very nice. I was disappointed that they didn't play my favorite Mary song, Bring Flowers of the Rarest, and opted for some weird "modern and charismatic" song. Ick. I never liked guitars.

Coming home from college and moving back into my New Orleans home, I was really glad that my home parish saved the Crowning for Mother's Day - which I thought was very appropriate. The cantor had laryngitis and so, once again, I was without my favorite hymn. *sigh*

But the altar was very nice.

St. Anthony Mission/St. Joseph Parish

Gretna, Louisiana

I think I enjoy the inside Crownings more, especially because they occurred within the context of a Mass.

A Small Apology

Things have been coming to a close at SHC. Studying  and packing and unpacking and organizing and reorganizing have eaten my days. I have a few events that I would like to write about, including:

Rock for Life

My Brother's Confirmation

Things I Learned my First Year at a Jesuit College

Speaking at a Constitution Rally

Setting up a Nice Shrine in my Bedroom

and possibly other things that I know I took pictures of and will post...

May Magnificat

May is Mary's Month, the school I teach at will be having May Crowning this Sunday, May 3rd. Here is a poem by a Jesuit who likes alliteration.

May Magnificat

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

MAY is Mary’s month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why:

Her feasts follow reason,

Dated due to season—


Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

Why fasten that upon her,

With a feasting in her honour?


Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunest

And flowers finds soonest?


Ask of her, the mighty mother:

Her reply puts this other

Question: What is Spring?—

Growth in every thing—


Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,

Grass and greenworld all together;

Star-eyed strawberry-breasted

Throstle above her nested


Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin

Forms and warms the life within;

And bird and blossom swell

In sod or sheath or shell.


All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathising

With that world of good,

Nature’s motherhood.


Their magnifying of each its kind

With delight calls to mind

How she did in her stored

Magnify the Lord.


Well but there was more than this:

Spring’s universal bliss

Much, had much to say

To offering Mary May.


When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple

Bloom lights the orchard-apple

And thicket and thorp are merry

With silver-surfèd cherry


And azuring-over greybell makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

And magic cuckoocall

Caps, clears, and clinches all—


This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth

To remember and exultation

In God who was her salvation.