BFFers

My move into a new house meant that once again I got to rearrange my room and the way I keep things. In St. Louis, I ended up creating a "prayer corner" -- a shelf where I arranged various prayerful and holy objects from images to rosaries to books. My black trunk has acquired such a display function here.

As a prayer corner -- or table -- or shrine of sorts -- it is very Catholic. On one side Mary holds baby Jesus; on the other, she embraces her dead Son. Saints Anthony of Padua, Vincent de Paul, Frances Xavier Cabrini, and Gerard Majella keep me company from their prayer cards. Besides His images with His mother, Jesus is depicted as the Good Shepherd, the Sacred Heart, and the Divine Mercy.

From other places in the room, Mary smiles at her infant Son and Christ Crucified hands on the cross. St. Vincent and St. Louis de Merillac poke out of random corners, along with St. Teresa of Avila. These images are interspersed with photographs. Wendy and I smiling on the bridge at graduation. One of my best friends' senior picture from high school. A group of CCMers at the candlelight ceremony. My beloved apartment from senior year. A trio of friends from freshmen year and at graduation. The Six Pack.

I love it. It is the finest depiction of the Communion of Saints I ever could imagine. One of the most beautiful parts of my Church is the way it recognizes our interdependency. I have all these images -- I wear St. Vincent, St. Therese Liseaux, and Our Lady around my neck -- not because they are cool decorations. I have them because they matter to my life. They form a part of my Church which is a body, and we are as integral to each other as my hand and arm are to each other.

They are a part of me and so I talk to them, I share my life with them, I ask them to pray for me. And physical reminders of them crop up in my life, the same way that I kept a For Better or For Worse comic that reminds me of my family, a key chain that reminds me of my dog bones team, a crocheted "love-mite" that reminds me of Meemaw, and a strange, grass-skirted hula-hooping man that reminds me of friends from Youth Group. They are physical symbols for my physical self.

And my friends, those in this world and those in the Church triumphant keep my company and smile down at me in my room, making the space alive, vibrant, beautiful.