Two things usually happen when I land somewhere new. I find a place to swim and I find a place to pray.
This morning at the beach down the hill I find curious items drawn in the sand. A heart shape with some shells inside. The words ‘courageous, awareness, justice’ along with a sideways stick-man. What does it mean? I don’t know. The small stony beach is deserted. I slink into the water and wonder what kind of creatures are underfoot. Little black crabs or other such things, concealed inside tufts of bouyant seaweed? A cockapoo pup arrives at the waters edge as I emerge. He wades in up to his dog knees.
“In all my life living here I have never seen this before,” his owner calls out from the shoreline. It makes me nervous when people say such things. Is it dirty? Dangerous? Are there dead bodies?
“You know the biggest sewage treatment facility for the city of Boston is right over there?”
That makes sense I think. I’ve been swimming in shit metaphorically, for about six weeks.
“It’s okay it’s piped from there to another island for treatment. This beach here is one of the cleanest in all of Massachusetts. And it’s safe,” he says, his steps crunching seashells into sand.
“Like a real life mermaid,” he says then in wonder, as if he really believes it. I do wonder sometimes what goes on in the heads of Americans.
There must be some reason people don’t swim here?
I bid him adieu and turn back up the hill, into the shower and on over to morning Mass. I’ve found a beautiful neighbourhood church, Our Lady of Good Counsel. Parishioners here sit quietly in the company of Jesus at Adoration, for an hour before Mass starts. Today there are eighteen of us. On weekdays Holy Mass takes place downstairs in the basement hall. It’s to keep costs down on the heating bill. The hall is home to a stage, some impressive plumbing and an old-fashioned pay-phone.
On Sunday, Father Martin gave a homily on the Current Situation. In his sermon he gave a brief history of the Middle East from Babylon through the Roman Empire, up to the present day Israel. It’s worth a listen.
“There are many forces at work in the world that want to change freedom of religion to freedom from religion. The exact opposite of what our Founding Fathers sought for our nation.
“We can see how sadly our country is moving away from God in many ways and from the truths of the faith,” he said. “Many are asking, how can we have fallen so far and so fast?”
“This weekend the Archdiocese has a handout for us asking for our help in opposing a Bill on Assisted Suicide in Massachussetts. A great step in the wrong direction. A great step in the direction of what St John Paul II called The Culture of Death.”
At the top of the hall area there’s an altar featuring an icon of Our Lady and pictures of various saints. Among these are the three children of the Fatima Apparitions, of 1917. The three visionaries, Lucia, Francesco and Jacinta, are familiar faces to me. There’s a framed picture of them standing in front of a stone wall perched on a ledge back home in my cottage. I don’t remember where it came from; it just seems like it’s always been there.
Last week, the church group had tea and cake after mass. Everybody’s got something to say about Ireland.
“My mother was from Co Galway and my father from Kerry. They are long dead now and I’m 80 years old so what does that tell you?”
I bet this departed mother had some stories to tell. Imagine emigrating to 1930’s America? The Wall Street crash and the Great Depression. Hangover to the 1920s.
These are a vibrant bunch, they’ve baked pumpkin cake and lemon cake and are urging me toward a cup of tea. They are the underrated warriors, the ones you don’t see, quietly praying away steadfastly for peace, in this world and in our hearts.
Father Martin explained in his Sunday sermon why the message of Fatima is important in relation to war. “There can be no peace without right relationship with God,” he said. Our Lady is asking for prayers. This little community is responding.
I’ve never been to Fatima. Over in Medjugorje, (site of ongoing Marian apparitions, in Bosnia Hercegovina) I was always curious about what started that terrible, bloody war. The names of cities that dominated news bulletins in the nineties; Srebrenica, Sarajevo, Belgrade.
On my first visit to Medjugorje ten years ago, I asked lots of people, in a desperate effort to understand, what caused that war? The answers involved multiple factors -including the media stoking semi-dormant divisions - but ultimately, this answer made the most sense to me:
“War starts in the hearts of men.”
It’s a decision, how we navigate this world, is it not?
The message from Medjugorje is pretty much the same as that of Fatima. Pray, fast and spend quiet time in the presence of the Lord. We have here, what Fr Martin calls ‘a bounty of hope.'
“The Rosary is the Remedy. The Peace Plan from Heaven.”
After Mass on Sunday I went to breakfast with my brother to meet his friends, a couple who, according to my brother: read my writing. This is a semi-controversy in itself, given that none of my American family read this Substack. These friends of my brothers are of Irish and native American descent. I’d asked if they are reading what I write about vaccines and for this received a nudge under the table. I’d scanned their faces for clues as to what was going on but the answer was readily offered; he reads the travel stuff and appreciates the writing. This woman’s mother was born and raised in Co Galway and she has connections to Mweenish island off Carna. Irish was her mother’s first language.
“She talked about Ireland all the time. She didn’t speak the language to us because she wanted us to assimilate into society here. They worked hard and raised us kids and on my mother’s 80th birthday we brought her back to visit. It was such a joy for my mother,” she says.
My brother is nervous I might ruin breakfast by dropping vaccine truth bombs. Instead, his friends offer their opinions on vaccines quite openly.
“I’ve had six shots. I think I’m okay,” she says before adding, with a giggle, “at least I hope I’m okay.”
Her stoic, adoring husband, with his huge brown eyes, closes the conversation with a declaration of his own.
“I don’t think anyone has the right to force anything on anyone else.”
Beati Pacifici - blessed are the peacemakers.
I’m getting fat from all the eating here so take a class at the local YMCA gym. ‘Enhance’ it was called and I had conducted no further research. Turns out it was a chair based workout for the unfit or the infirm - mostly older folks - so not too taxing. I love that some of these ladies got dolled up to work out. A much younger lady wearing a blue surgical mask turns up late and takes the seat beside mine.
“Raise your arms and pump it for ten,” flow the instructions. We raise arms above heads.
“Now alternate feet. Left, right, left, right … and tap it out.” We swing our feet from our seats and tap the floor.
During a break in these activities a newspaper is passed from the lady behind me to the woman in the mask, beside me. It’s colour is faded and the font is strangely dated.
“He was here, in Quincy, at a Marian Conference in the Marriot Hotel last weekend,” the lady behind me is saying.
“Our Lady is upset, she is calling for prayer, the message is very serious.”
Who was here, I ask her, interjecting in their conversation.
“Ivan, one of the Medjugorje visionaries, he was here giving a talk at a conference,” she replies. “Do you know anything about Medjugorje?”
Yes, I tell her. I’ve been there. The woman in the mask looks at each of us and her eyes grow wide.
“Raise and lift, right then left,” come the instructions and we fall back into our exercise. The Medjugorje lady leaves class early.
After exercise, the mask woman and I get talking. She has lots of questions. When did I go? What was it like there? It is very religious?
I tell her that trip to Medjugorje ten years ago changed my whole life. That since that trip I’ve endeavoured to go to Mass everyday. I tell her I’m here in Boston visiting family for the first time in years and they’ve been watching, somewhat bemused, wondering what happened to their wayward/ wild-child younger sister.
Her eyes crinkle up in a smile first and then glaze over in emotion. I can’t see the rest of her face. As the mirrored studio empties out around us, she introduces herself as Maria and shares the intimate details of how her life has fallen apart completely over the last four years. She sustained an injury out hiking that left her upper body pretty much powerless and then multiple bad actor medics made the situation worse. She lost the ability to work and in the midst of all this her husband filed for divorce. In the parting of this relationship she lost her home and came close to losing her mind she said. Her family were all in Peru, she had very little support. She slid down into a dark depression so devastating that one day, she found herself sobbing inside a Catholic Church. A stranger approached and offered her a Miraculous Medal on a piece of string and she was so absolutely moved by this gesture that she sobbed even more. That gift, she says, was a turning point that pivoted Maria back toward her faith. She went to confession and told a priest.
“I’m feeling depressed too,” he’d said simply. Maria was shocked by his honest admission.
She found a beautiful mass, on Hancock Street, where she feels the music and hymns soothe her soul.
“It feels as if everything in my life has been dismantled. That there must be some reason for it. And I’ve been called back to prayer. Everything else is gone. But God is here,” she says.
Maria tells me how it took a while but she found a new home to rent and slowly, very slowly, things are improving for her. She’s a regular at mass and finds comfort in prayer. Her strength is returning, though she can only exercise very gently. She’s handed me the Medjugorje newspaper and insists that I take it. We move out into the gym area where big strong men around us are lifting heavy weights. She’s still the only one wearing a mask. She’s pinching it tight around her nose. We exchange numbers to meet up again. On the way home I’m thinking, how is it, that I befriended the one person I am least likely to have anything in common with, the person wearing a mask. And I’m thinking, not for the first time, that Our Lady has a sense of humour. She is ever-so-gently reminding me to desist in my judgement of others.
*Thanks to those reading + supporting this work. Option to ‘buy a coffee’ here
Listen to Father’s Sunday sermon (Oct 29 from 16 mins) here
https://macatholic.org/physician-assisted-suicide/
That was beautiful! And how true it is that war starts in the hearts of men. Blessed are the peace-makers, indeed.
I loved this one Louise❤️. Sorry to hear about your shit swimming experience 😊