Remedies

Ave Maria! Happy New Year. I wish peace for all in 2020. Despite perils and precarity in all directions, there is joy in the Lord and peace. Let us focus on that.

I am working hard to produce the first prototype of the peace-promoting product that I hope through entrepreneurial efforts will fund the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project. There are numerous household members eager to test the prototype. If it passes their scrutiny, I have several high-profile testers in mind. Then, to market, to market, to buy a Portland home for Mary's Ward, the Catholic Worker Movement in Maine.

I composed a prayer for the success of the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project. Before composing, I researched every prayer, chaplet or novena I could find addressing the Child Jesus, Our Lady of Good Remedy and St. Nicholas. In so doing I did find a devotion and church dedication in Madrid, Spain to the Holy Child of Remedy, the name of a statue of the Child Jesus. The first time I prayed my initial version of the prayer in church, I realized that I had to include St. Joseph the Provider. All the prayers I found were structured in threes. My goal was to create something I could remember, so that I could pray it while walking or riding the bus, as well as in church. Please join me in praying for the success of the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project. Adapt the prayer as needed. The important part is to pray for success of the project, if it is God's will.

Prayer for the success of the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project

+ O Jesus, through the intercession of Our Lady of Good Remedy, St. Joseph the Provider, and St. Nicholas, I pray for the success of the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project.

Our Father...

Hail Mary...

Glory Be...

O Divine Child Jesus, bless and protect us.

Our Lady of Good Remedy and St. Joseph the Provider, pray for us and assist us.

St. Nicholas, hear us, guide us, and help us.

(Repeat from beginning twice more. Then:)

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of Good Remedy, that we may increase our dedication to your Son, and make the world alive with His Spirit. +

As I was working on the peace product, I consulted some books on autism. One of the books listed in my library catalogue search (I am a daily library patron) was about the gut-brain connection. As I have known for a few years, the gut is called the second brain because there is so much neurological activity there. I had known for some time about the effect of gut health on brain health and vice versa, but the books I found at the library this week outlined a very complex, but provable, relationship between the gut, the brain and the myriad of autoimmune diseases. Wow! This was like reading the history of my family from six generations past through my grandchildren. We have Autism Spectrum Disorder, digestive disorders and autoimmune diseases. The evidence shows that healing the gut can have positive outcomes for brain and autoimmune issues and for all aspects of health, for that matter. All of a sudden the words "peace" and "remedy" became even more meaningful. I can see the Portland Mary's Ward House of Hospitality serving gut-friendly meals for free. Imagine the impact of serving vulnerable people food that can heal the body, including the brain. Jesus is the Great Physician, who has created a remedy to help the troubled find His peace. It's a place to start.

Then, after these revelations, I heard this prayer after communion on Wednesday of this week.

"May your people, O Lord,

whom you guide and sustain in many ways,

experience, both now and in the future,

the remedies which you bestow,

that, with the needed solace of things that pass away,

they may strive with ever deepened trust

for things eternal.

Through Christ our Lord."

So, we're on the right track. Thinking about remedies and St. Joseph, I recalled St. Andre Bessette, whose feast day was this week. Prayer and oil from a lamp burning in honor of St. Joseph effected many healings and spread great devotion to St. Joseph in Canada where Brother Andre served his religious community as doorman. I read that St. Nicholas' relics are among those which emit oil. An internet search yielded references to his acts of generosity as "remedies". God is so good. Encouragement from heaven this week.

Please join me in praying for the success of the Our Lady and St. Nicholas Project. Divine Child Jesus, bless and protect us. Our Lady of Good Remedy, St. Joseph the Provider, and St. Nicholas, pray for us.