Beatitude Attitudes, vol. 2

I'm linking up again with Rakhi at the Pitter Patter Diaries for this week's Beatitude Attitudes.

[1] Blessed am I by the witness of many saints who had "prickly" personalities. Saint Jerome comes to mind, Hildegard of Bingen and others who weren't necessarily easy to get along with. They give me comfort that I too can be considered saintly even if I can't fully conquer the sharpness in my personality.

This is Hildegard - you can see that she didn't "suffer fools gladly", but she's one of my favorite saints! See why here.

[2] Blessed am I that our priest is also a spiritual director (he actually did his graduate thesis on spiritual direction!). Finding a spiritual director is hard enough but when you live in a foreign country it's a real challenge. God took pity on me and brought an excellent spiritual director right to my doorstep (figuratively speaking, of course)

[3] Blessed am I to have the gift of song. As St. Augustine noted, he who sings prays twice, and no matter what scriptures I'm reading, somewhere in the passage is a song that I learned decades ago when we were all so intent on "singing unto the Lord a new song". It's amazing how many scriptures our generation put melodies to!

[4] Blessed am I for the gift of health. I'm at the age where things in my body are starting to show their slow slide back to the dust from which they came, but overall I'm in good shape, especially when I think of all the people (young and old) I know who are having to deal with serious conditions like diabetes or heart problems.

[5] Blessed am I to love (and be able) to work with my hands: knitting, sewing, darning, crochet, etc. It is from these activities that I learned patience.


[6] Blessed am I to have a curious mind. Because of this, I have been enriched by learning about the native plants of every region I've lived in, and learning about ancient and medieval history (which helped to bring me into the Catholic Church and taught me much about human nature), among many other fascinating areas I've delved into.

[7] A thousand times blessed am I to have God as my father. I never knew my earthly father, who died when I was only 4 months old, but God has proven true to His word that He is a father to the fatherless and I know that He keeps me close to His heart always.