There she was, on the side of or at the end of the corridor. As we passed, we curtsied and said a little prayer to Our Mother, Most Admirable. In our building at Lawrence Avenue (at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Detroit), each of the schools was on a different floor, so on each floor was a portrait of Mater. In the 1930s, we still had religious from France who had had to leave their convents when the government took over our schools there, so we benefitted from the stories that “Ma Mere’s love of Mater,” prompted her to share with us through postcards from her native land or just in our conversational 2nd or 3rd grade French.
What a joy it was to find Mater at our arch rival – Grosse Pointe. We got to curtsy and say a little prayer there for help for “our side” before volleyball, field hockey, or basketball games. (I’m not sure it worked as I’m sure their side was praying as well.)
Finding Mater at Kenwood and Manhattanville was like finding an old and dear friend, someone we knew and loved and whom we were sure, knew us and loved us. And what joy to pray at the original painting at the Trinita Dei Monte in Rome. We could never be in a foreign land when Mater was there. And Mater is with us still, in her images in our institutions, in her portraits on the internet and on our walls, calling us home, as we conclude our pilgrimage
Lord God, may your love in me express itself in the love and service of others.
Mrs. Robert W. Denton(Dacia Van Antwerp)
