This video by Thomas Heaton is exactly what I love to do in photography. Thomas is a contemplative, at least it seems that way to me.

And a couple of mine:

MY CHILD, do not trust in your present feeling, for it will soon give way to another. As long as you live you will be subject to changeableness in spite of yourself. You will become merry at one time and sad at another, now peaceful but again disturbed, at one moment devout and the next indevout, sometimes diligent while at other times lazy, now grave and again flippant.

But the man who is wise and whose spirit is well instructed stands superior to these changes. He pays no attention to what he feels in himself or from what quarter the wind of fickleness blows, so long as the whole intention of his mind is conducive to his proper and desired end. For thus he can stand undivided, unchanged, and unshaken, with the singleness of his intention directed unwaveringly toward Me, even in the midst of so many changing events. And the purer this singleness of intention is, with so much the more constancy does he pass through many storms.

… Thomas à Kempis, “The Imitation of Christ”

MY CHILD, I will teach you now the way of peace and true liberty.

Seek, child, to do the will of others rather than your own.

Always choose to have less rather than more.

Look always for the last place and seek to be beneath all others.

Always wish and pray that the will of God be fully carried out in you.

Behold, such will enter into the realm of peace and rest.

… Thomas à Kempis, “The Imitation of Christ”

She was born of a Catholic Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father.  She was influenced by the fervent Christianity of her mother and of the Black Robes to live a life of remarkable virtue, at heart not only a Christian – “a praying Indian” – but a Christian virgin. She attained the most perfect union with her Creator in prayer. Her extraordinary sanctity impressed not only her own people  but the French and the Jesuit missionaries.

Pictures taken at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine, LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

A few more beauties feeding in my back yard.

Patience….a very rare virtue these days…

A few “Red Hats” visiting me this morning!

“It is I, Do not be afraid”

…John 3