A Visit from Sainte Foy

As I sat in this morning's pre-dawn darkness journaling by candlelight and listening to the pilgrimage music of the great organ at Conques playing on the CD, Sainte Foy came to visit. She took my hand and lead me back to her Abbey Church. We sat there together on the hard wooden pews watching the votives flicker against the shadows on the creamy stone walls of the church. She pointed to St. Jacques keeping her company in the west transept and to Mary's chapel on the east. We listened as the pilgrims gathered there sang "Ultreia," their anthem, accompanied by Brother Jean-Pierre on the grand piano made small by the high walls and vaulted domes. Altar, choir, hard backless benches lined across the nave for small Masses...all protected by lacy ironwork, delicate from a distance, deadly spiked on closer look, forged from prisoners' fetters shattered by the Little Saint.

"Sainte Foy, Little Saint, Virgin Child, martyred for your love of Christ...free me from the fetters of my life that keep me tethered to things that don't matter. Free me to come again to your great Abbey Church to sing praise to your Creator, my Creator, our God, our Christ. Sainte Foy, Little Saint, as you are a child, so love all the children. Hold them in your care and keep them under your watchful eye. Teach them faith, teach them love, teach them to have fun, O Little Martyr. Teach me these things as well. Whisper my prayers into God's listening ear. Whisper His divine will into my listening heart. Bless me, Child Saint. Offer me to God, our Creator."