Epilogue to an Extraordinary Day

Read the first post in this series, Extra-ordinary Day, here.

I was delighted to see all of the reception arrangments go home with different families from the TLM community and the parish. 

A holy lady, who insisted on washing all the dishes after the reception, sent me a message the next day thanking me for the entry table arrangement.  

She told me that her friend's husband had passed away unexpectedly on the weekend.  She took some of the plentiful lilies and irises from the arrangement to give to her.  When her grieving friend saw the flowers, she related, her face immediately brightened with joy.  

Those same lilies and irises feted the ordination of a priest, and comforted the grieving widow.  This led me to a reflection on the importance of beauty, even in deep sorrow as a reminder of God's majesty and His profound love for us.  

While cooking dinner for my family this evening, I listened to this Sensus Fidelium homily on prayer and humility.  Father articulates  perfectly why I arrange flowers for the Church-contemplating their beauty leads me to contemplate the beauty of God.  

I will close with this familiar passage from Matthew 6:26, perhaps especially pertinent in these times of confusion:

"Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? 

And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit? 

And for raiment why are you solicitous?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.

And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?

Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. 

Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself.  Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

One sunny morning this week my two sweet daughters surprised me with this arrangment they made in the backyard using floral oasis.  The seven-year-old told me the rosemary was added "to give texture" to the arrangement.  

Excerpt from the Douay-Rheims Bible.