Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival

Sunday Snippets is brought to you each week by RAnn at This, That and the Other Thing.

This week we continued our Vivaldi Gloria.  Our art and poetry reflected a Memorial Day theme with A Time for Honoring by Sgt. Pete Damon and a haiku by Asei.

This week I began the Novena to the Holy Spirit, which is a series of YouTube Videos with the novena prayers.

I also talked about the bird revolution that seems to be taking place outside my front door.

Have a beautiful week!

Novena to the Holy Spirit--Day 4

Novena to the Holy Spirit--Day 3

Bird Revolution

I think we're having some sort of bird political uprising here. We've got a nest that is re-used every year by some sort of purple finch. Lately we've been hearing and witnessing lots of noise by the cat birds (and, dh says, blue birds as well) in the bushes.

Yesterday, I witnessed lots of barn swallows flying around the finch nest. Something is going on out there.

Some sort of revolution is in the air.

Novena to the Holy Spirit--Day 2

In today's Novena, we pray for holy fear.

Novena to the Holy Spirit--Day 1

 This novena to the Holy Spirit, to be said between Ascension and Pentecost, has been generously uploaded to YouTube.  I will post one each day.   The first novena was said by Mary and the Apostles during the 9 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on them.

Poetry Wednesday--Asei

Flowers of the grass

scarcely shown, and withered

name and all 

This haiku by Asei made me think of walking through a grave yard on a hot summer's day at the end of the dry season. The withered grass is beautifully juxtaposed (in my mind) with the deceased under the ground. Even their names are disappearing from the worn out grave stones.

I found it on a website of Japanese Haiku Death Poetry, written by Zen monks on the verge of death and thought it appropriate to post for the recent Memorial Day Holiday.

It reminds me of the end of American Poet Emily Dickinson's poem, I died for beauty.

and so as kinsmen met a night
and talked between the rooms
until the moss had reached our lips
and covered up
our names

For me, this also evokes images of death and the grave. Both are eerily similar in their imagery.