Our Lady of Lourdes by Hector Garrido
Today is also my lovely wife's birthday. She is devoted to Our Lady. So, for her on this day, I pray:
Remember, O most blessed Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
May the Blessed Virgin's prayers and unfailing intercession help us to rise above our human weakness.
Speaking of rising above our human weakness, in the current issue of Traces, to mark the 50th anniversary of his untimely death, Luca Doninelli has a very insightful article on Albert Camus. Her piece, A Man in Revolt, a take on his most influential and best work L'Homme révolté, is quite wonderful. One of the two quotes she uses to demonstrate Camus' "irreplaceable importance...in all of literature," taken from his Cahiers: "Beginning to give yourself means condemning yourself to never giving enough even when you give everything. And you never give everything." Our inability to give everything is an ontological limitation of our fallen humanity. Doninelli is certainly correct that the Nobel literature committee's very surprising decision to award him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957 "was perhaps the last act of true courage of the Swedish Academy."