our_lady_of_the_southern_cross-1aI discovered Our Lady of the Southern Cross when someone emailed me, knowing I’ve been writing a series this year on Mary’s titles for Today’s Catholic Woman.  It was just one line in the forwarded email, “Our Lady of the Southern Cross, pray for us.”  The comment above was to the effect of, “Did you know about this title?  Is it in your schedule?”

Well, no.  It wasn’t.  I put that schedule together and have been sticking to it, except for, I think, one time.  I’m not a big fan of last minute changes.  (The people who know me well are laughing loudly at that understatement.)

And then I saw her.

She won me over, this Mary.  I even found a website where I could order the print, and realized that not only would the shipping be astronomical, but that, well, now’s just not the time to order it.  I put her on as my desktop background and have caught myself minimizing everything just so I can gaze at her.

This is Mary to me.  And this is Jesus to me.

I did end up changing my writing schedule, because I couldn’t get Our Lady of the Southern Cross out of my mind.  The other title, incidentally, was almost a repeat of an earlier title I had written about…so it was almost like I was supposed to write about this Mary.

There’s not much to know about Our Lady of the Southern Cross, no apparition or big miracle or huge following.  I came up pretty scarce as I searched.

But that look, that baby, that painting.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  But what was I going to say.

By the grace of the Holy Spirit, I came up with a few words.

Now it’s time for me to minimize things and gaze at her.  🙂