Sixteen fits and conniptions...

I have no idea how to spell that, but that is what my grandmother would be having if she were still alive and could read this post.

My grandmother's mother was brought up Catholic and was disowned by her family when she married a Protestant. She spent the rest of her life indignantly anti-Catholic, as did my grandmother. My parents never go to church, and they are rather shocked that I do. Until we moved to where we live now, both Mr Spouse and I went to fairly strongly Protestant churches, his even more than mine. We now go to an Anglican church (Episcopalian for those north of the border/over the pond) that is strong on ceremony and saints.

I managed fairly successfully to avoid too much on Mothering Sunday in the way of slush, but the previous day had been the Annunciation (25th March being 9 calendar months before 25th December, and the church being run in former years by men who never had children), and a little was said about Mary. Thinking about it later, I was reminded of something I heard on the radio last year on the same date, which I think was Good Friday, about Mary and how women who have lost children, before or after birth, can feel a special devotion to her; they specifically mentioned miscarriage, and this was only a few weeks after mine.

I am not particularly into the idea that if you pray for something you will get it. I try to see prayer more as a communication, including possibly explanation to me of what I should be doing, why things aren’t happening the way I want, and also sympathy – a been there, had that happen to me type sympathy.

Which is how this good little Protestant girl then found herself at choir last night rehearsing a French hymn to the Virgin, and finding that the words had a huge emotional impact.