Still raining, Still Dreaming

Thursday January 22, 2015

By Deacon Grant Lacey

It's winter in Rome and it's still raining.
Not a summer rain that rages across the plains but a quiet rain that comes and goes as it pleases.
Not a rain that drives one indoors but a rain that causes contemplation.  You contemplate the lives of the great saints who walked these streets before you, you contemplate your own future life and ministry and you contemplate buying an umbrella from the gypsy standing on the sidewalk.
But you don't.
Because it isn't that kind of rain.

We has mass this morning at chapel in the Roman seminary dedicated to Mary under the title "Our Lady of Confidence." Msgr. Callighan our intrepid rector from SPS presided at this mass and during his homily he sketched out part of the long standing devotion to Our Lady of Confidence at that seminary.  The name comes from an image of the blessed mother holding the child Jesus that is set just above the tabernacle.  The image is quite small but the seminarians have prayed before it for years.

The story Msgr. related is of a group of seminarians that had been called up and were preparing to go fight in the Great War.  They prayed to Our Lady of Confidence for their safe return that they may serve as priests someday.  To the man they all returned home safely. One of the seminarians who was part of that episode was a young man named Roncalli, who later became St. Pope John XXIII.
It is fitting that Msgr Callighan brought this devotion and a copy of this image to SPS, we have work to do, and we trust Our Lady to intercede for us that we might bring it to fulfillment.

Mater Mea, Fiducia Mea.
My Mother, My Confidence.