I Listen to the Prayers of My Children

I Listen to the Prayers of My Children, originally uploaded by Stephanie A. Richer.

Taken January 22, 2012 at the newest chapel in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, dedicated to Our Lady of Lebanon.

I remember my uncle and godfather, Michael Koretzky, had a good friend who was a Maronite Lebanese - at a party, he kept joking with his friend, calling him one of those "marinated brothers of Lebanon."

I crashed a Papal Mass in the piazza before St. Peter's in Rome on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 2001. I watched and cheered as Blessed Pope John Paul II canonized St. Rafqa, a Maronite nun.

And so I ask that Our Lady of Lebanon intercede on my behalf. We seem to have crossed paths before. I had to something very difficult today. Maybe it will have sorry consequences for me, but it was either do it or have a resentful heart.

Sweet Virgin, pray for us.