September 7: Susan Firer, "Relics," Counting Blessings

Relics

by:  Susan Firer

Not fountains, grottoes, or statuary, but pieces
of cloth, bone, wood, and hair touched
to other people or places was what
we found when we undressed you.  After
you died, we found a conniption of medals
shinier than the gem collection room in Chicago's
Field Museum.  Relics like soldier's decorations
pinned and blazing on your hospital gowns, tulip
green scapulars clamped to the buzzer that called
your nurse.  Stuffed in your purse:  pieces of uncooked
spaghetti-colored palm touched to the Holy Cross,
a chip of St. Catherine's bone sealed
& filigreed in metal; a piece of bicycle
blue cloth blessed by the pope & sealed in plastic;
a silver Saint Christopher medal touched
by Padre Pio; a Saint Jude medal.
That late afternoon relics rained deep
as the voice of Bishop Sheen
whose recordings of the rosary you'd played
us to sleep with when we were your baby girls.

______________________

I've been thinking a lot about blessings, in all their forms, a lot recently.  I grew up in a very Catholic house, one where we said grace before every meal, knelt down and recited the rosary every night as a family.  Mass every weekend--Saturday night or Sunday morning.  Blessings seemed as real and concrete as Fruit Loops and The Six Million Dollar Man.

As an adult, I try to count my blessings when I face challenges.  Try to remind myself of all the good in my life.  I've been doing that a lot these last few weeks.  Listen to the sound of rain on the roof.  Smell the fresh-cut lawn.  Hold my daughter and son a little longer when they come to kiss me goodnight.

Saint Marty's life is a reliquary of grace.