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With the upcoming Feast of my home parish’s patroness, Our Lady, Star of the Sea, on my mind, I found myself wanting to learn more about her. I started looking for articles online, hoping to discover something I didn’t already know. Then I thought about a book I have on the history of our parish, Star of the West, written by my home parish pastor, Fr. Joseph Illo. I had already read it, so this time I was simply browsing through a few pages again. And somehow, I stopped at page 21.

Reading Star of the West, has been such a beautiful surprise.  What I expected to be a history of our parish, Star of the Sea Church, keeps catching me off guard. One moment I’m reading a historical detail, and the next, a paragraph turns almost poetic and leaves me pondering something much deeper about faith. I was especially moved by the story of how “Jerome translated Mar-yam into Latin as Stilla Maris (“drop of the sea”), which is a good description of Mary: she is just a tiny drop in the ocean of God’s mercy, but without her the ocean would be one drop less. Through her littleness—her complete trust in God’s will—the floodgates of God’s mercy open to us” (excerpt from Star of the West, p 21). It’s moments like this that remind me how history, language, and faith can converge into something beautiful: A word passed down through centuries becoming a name for Mary, and that name leading us to the woman who carries it—the Mother of Jesus, whose humble “yes” opened her life completely to God and through whom we are led ever closer to her Son.

And when I come across a paragraph like this—something that provokes my faith and invites me to go deeper—I don’t always want to simply keep reading. Sometimes, I feel called to stop and pray. So I decided to pray the Rosary, using two special rosaries that I inherited: One from my mom, and one from the mother of a dear friend. Both loving mothers that died 5 years ago around this time. As I held them, I found myself reflecting on their colors. The white rosary reminded me of purity, and the red one of the blood of Christ—the Blood we receive in the Eucharist. Suddenly, the words I had just been reading became prayer. History became devotion. And something I had learned about Mary became an invitation to draw closer to Christ.

I love when a book doesn’t simply teach you something, but makes you stop, wonder, and pray. 

Our Lady Star of the Sea, pray for us!