Part I: Mirian Sign of 8 December, Mercy, Rosary, Failure

Part I:

 8 December was a day I'd never forget. Maybe I've been uncharacteristically silent for a few days since and have forced myself to write this. 

Day started early. I go to 7/11 to get a carton of cigarettes used to sustain my sanity during the Glossary Phase of my project. Upon leaving, I see this special needs black kid on my rental scooter. He tells me he wants to ride it. As he approached closer asking for a cigarette - I give him 5 - he smelled really badly. Now, I'll often call people in their early 20's kids. But he was really mentally a child. He tells me that he needs a phone to ride it. I tell him that the scooter probably won't work if he rides it too far from my phone. And really, those things can be scary if you don't know what you're doing. I freeze it. But we talk. It was fine. 5 minutes. Give him a bit of time. I got to get to work soon

Probably 4 hours later in mortification, I see this white guy struggling to park his truck. I guide him to back out, as the angle in which he pulled in risked giving him a bad dent. My relic was in my hand, as is normal when I smoke and pray simultaneously, before getting to my next phase of work. One black lady walks up and says "Look at you being a good samaritan." I guess I had a little resentment about that theoretically since what I'm doing should be a normal thing. So many are Fallen on even basic things, it feels like...

Another two hours pass. Maybe not. Still in mortification. Then I see something strange on my computer. It was a word highlighted in blue: 《 Présente 》(feminine singular). "Strange," I thought to myself, "I used to highlight in blue and red except it got categorically confusing in my last draft." (I only use red as catch-all, typically to point to a small preposition surrounded by two words crossed out, a contraction so as to not confuse that with an indefinite article, and yellow to highlight errors.) This blue apparition lasted for about 10 seconds. Then it vanished...

It's another 2 hours later, maybe 4. I design to log this possible sign in my Catholic diary. Then I saw it: "The Feast of the Immaculate Conception." Then I knew... This was yet another sign from the Mother of Christ...

I couldn't describe my emotional state even if I'm level-headed. Why me? What did I do? What's the meaning here? I'm not, in theory, a good Catholic... Then I felt this urge to work on my rosary again.

When I get home, I crash. It's difficult to describe how exhausting each of those days are of mortification, smoking, thinking, praying, doing the grind de novo. It's not an excuse, but I should have listened. I failed...

I didn't work on the Rosary on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I did so the next day, on Friday. As I'm putting together the final draft, we have:

Saint Martin of Tours - Alms 

Sainte Geneviève - Mortification 

Saint Francis of Assisi - Mysticism

Sainte Joan of Arc - Martyrdom

Fatima - Blessed Mother and the three children - Miracle

AMMMM...

That bothered me a lot. What are the odds that I would choose 4 M's? This is all incidental... Am I missing something?

So I go in a thesaurus to find another word for Alms that starts with M and is sufficient... Nothing... Then I read it on Wikipedia... Soon enough, I bump into Mercy for a job that I didn't think could get done...

Mercy, Mortification, Mysticism, Martyrdom, Miracle...

And then it dawned on me... Alms is a part of Mercy but it isn't the only thing. I can give $40 to a random homeless person. But when you choose to listen to one and to validate them as if they're a human being, it's Mercy. 

Sign from God!

I couldn't get this Mirian Sign out of my head the next day. It was perplexing, intriguing, and you're not only on a different level, but you work so much harder knowing that in the lonely space of this project, Christ's Mother is with me...

So I start on the Rosary. The draft is done. I'm ready to submit everything... It's December 9. As I go on Etsy to finalize it, the seller from Lourdes informs me that she will be on vacation from 9 December until January. The last day to have had centerpieces be sent was on 8 December, the day that I saw the Mirian Sign in blue, the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception... I was sad, begged, heard nothing back from the vendor.

I failed. It will have to wait a few more weeks