BLESSINGS FROM POONDI Last week end I spent two days at my favorite retreat OUR LADY OF LOURDES BASILICA POONDI, South India and like every time I go there I experience a presence of God that surpasses all understanding with a grace, miracle and or blessing.  This time I was used as an instrument of God; this is what happen: When I arrived at basilica I went to my room and outside the door of the next room was a man whose leg was bandaged up from the knee to his toes.  His face was all cut up actually he looked a mess.  I smiled at him but he just looked at me and so I went in my room.  The next day while sitting in my room with the door open a young women said hello and I invited her in.  She spoke a little English and my friend interpreted the rest for her and me.  She was the wife of the man next store and she told the story of what happen to him.  He was in a bad bike accident which caused the mus...

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY Sunday May 10 th is Mother’s Day a celebration in the USA where I am familiarized.  It is a special day set aside just for mom a true day of, allowed pampering, by her from her children.  Wherever the children live they try to make an effort to come home and be with mom!  The celebration can include flowers, candy, and dinner including a host of mom’s favorite likes.  However, her favorite is her family gathered around her where reminiscing is sure to occupy the family conversations bringing laughter and joy to her day. Mother’s Day is a celebration that can be adopted by anyone on any day therefore, give your mom a memorable day of her own of love, laughter and seeing YOU her precious child and your family.  DEDICATED:  TO ALL MOM’S AROUND THE WORLD…HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!    ©Crayon drawing of the IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY by FRANCO JOSEPH Mother Mary is the Mother of us all and she is loved and honor ...

SHOP UNTIL WE DROP The universal call to most especially women is shopping nothing is more accelerating.  Shopping is not always want it can be need but there is something about going around stores and spending.  This time can be spent with family and friends and it mixes well with idle chatter and or gossiping with most assuredly grabbing a bite to eat.  The smells coming from shops offering food can make you drool and making you feel as if you can eat your way throughout the whole shopping outing.  We look at the latest fashions and even try them on knowing full well that expenditure is not in the budget but for a fleeting moment we are what we put on…WOW!  At malls especially we can sit and people watch and gleam some insight in how the rest of society is doing. Children especially love to be taken on a shopping excursion for they will assuredly get goodies to eat and no doubt a cheap toy that will be broken by days end.  Balloons can be...

THE VULNERABLE This elderly man of poor health has been coming to ME A SERVANT OF CHRIST MISSION every Sunday for the last two years needing twenty rupees to buy half a pound of rice.  He never asks for more and blesses us every time for the money.  Other than the blessing he rarely says anything else. Approximately a little more than a month ago the elderly man did not stop by to get his rice money and we noted this but since we did not know where he lived we thought he might be sick.  The following week he stopped by to tell us he had been beaten up and the goons stole his property papers and took his land.  He went to the police but since it was Diwali (Hindu Festival) the police refused to register his complaint or look into the fact he had been beaten until the festival was over making the elderly man return once more to them.  The police took the complaint and placed it into the hands of an arbitrator, which in essence told the elderly m...