Of God, Novenas, and Buffalo: Part 2: Beautiful things out of Dust

I had been waiting to hear back from Dorothy about what the theme for the novena would be. I knew I had six talks and was ready and excited to start working on them but I couldn’t without the theme for direction. I didn’t get the theme until May. The theme was “Mary’s Message”. I then asked Dorothy what were the titles/themes for each of the 6 talks. She replied, “I trust you, you can come up with them.” If someone was looking at me in that moment I probably looked like a dear in headlights for a split second. But after we hung up I immediately starting plotting out ideas and sending her my immediate thoughts of the layout of the topics for the week. But what we would later come to realize is that we were not the ones orchestrating that week.

I planned my talks pretty much without any input from Dorothy except for me sharing the possible themes for each day. Also planning his talks for that week was Fr. Moen. He was the main celebrant for most of the masses as well as the homilist for the week. He was going to be speaking about Fatima. At the same time, not related as far as we knew, Dorothy had a daily prayer regimen that she had to keep up due to her discernment of becoming a lay SOLT member. Soon we were going to be shown how all of these were connected.

We began to notice very early on that we weren’t orchestrating the week. After mass on Monday I grabbed Dorothy and ecstatically told her how Fr. Moen's homily matched up perfectly with what I was going to speak about that evening.  Dorothy, also excited, told me how her prayer that day lined up with what Fr. spoke about in his homily. This continued all week. Her prayer, Fr.’s homily, and my talks in the evening all connected. We were just taken aback and were so thankful for God showing up and showing off. We shared this with the group every chance we got, as well as with Fr. Moen.

The real test came later in the week. I did not find out until Thursday morning that our Thursday schedule and Friday schedule needed to be switched. The pastor from the neighboring parish where we were painting the rectory, wanted to show us his thanks by celebrating mass, adoration, giving us a talk, and cooking for us. Due to that I had to adjust. But of course, no matter how things got switched around, everything still lined up, Dorothy’s prayer, Fr.’s homily, and my talk.

God was making beautiful things out of our dust.

“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the wilderness I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” – Isaiah 3: 11

“The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” – Revelation 21: 5