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Blessing My Mother's Rosary
Lourdes. Loss. Love.
Blessing My Mother's Rosary: Lourdes. Loss. Love. is the story of Carla, as a young woman, fulfilling her promise to take her mother's favorite rosary with her on a backpacking trip through Europe to have it blessed at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. The seemingly fleeting trip turned into an inspirational journey culminating some forty years later.
About her mother's death, Carla writes: "Mom and I held hands, a flurry of medical personnel rushed in and out of the room. They adjusted cords and PICC lines, took vitals, filled out paperwork. The same questions were asked over and over again by different people. My brother and I knew the drill and patiently answered each. Finally, our mother was formally admitted to the hospital and her condition stabilized. From there she was eventually released, to spend her final few days lovingly surrounded by our family at the home of David and his wife Janice, both of whom selflessly kept watch, attending to her every need. Within weeks, Mom took her final breath and, with it, my one link to goodness was gone forever. Or so I thought."
It was while she was clearing out her mother's bedroom after the funeral, that Carla came across the beloved indigo rosary her mother had asked her to get blessed some thirty-five-years earlier. "Sometime in those three-and-a-half decades since," Carla describes, "it had lost one Our Father bead and five Hail Mary beads. My mother, however, was never one to discard things, so she had used a safety pin to link the rosary's loop so she could continue to use it in spite of the missing beads. For her, the pin could just as easily represent the six prayers as the beads could. That was who she was and how she thought."
This is the story of Carla's inspirational journey beyond grief and loss. It is an exquisitely touching memoir for those who have lost a parent or loved one, for those who have ever visited Lourdes or other sacred places, for those who have never taken such a pilgrimage or wish to, and for all of us who believe in miracles large and small.
Blessing My Mother's Rosary: Lourdes. Loss. Love will be published in February, 2025 by ACTA Publications.
Carla has written a deeply felt description of her experience...
Bill Kurtis, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist of National Public Radio's “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!"
Listen to his beautiful and compelling introduction:
Through our friendship, I have learned two things about Carla: She is one who “looks up” with a vibrant, hopeful perspective and she embraces the miracles in her life. This book tells the story of Carla, her mother Mary, and how over time, Lourdes was woven into their lives, bringing them even closer together in the most beautiful of ways. It is a miraculous journey of reflection, hope and love; one, I know you will enjoy.
Michele L. Sullivan, author of Looking Up: How a Different Perspective Turns Obstacles into Advantages and retired director of Corporate Social Innovation and President of the Caterpillar Foundation.
“If the esplanades could talk, the stories they would tell. For all the curious tourists who visited, there were millions upon millions who came to Lourdes for more serious reasons. They came on gurneys or in wheelchairs, hobbling on crutches or limping with canes. Few were healed; most were not. And still, they came. They came deaf or blind, bearing physical deformities, diseased with hidden maladies--cancer, diabetes, leukemia, AIDS. They brought their struggles with autism, dementia, Down syndrome, anxiety, depression, and addiction.
They were one-hundred-and-twenty-four-years’ worth of mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends, co-workers, bus drivers, teachers, machinists, engineers, homemakers, doctors, lawyers, cobblers, builders, students. They were famous, infamous, anonymous or forgotten. They came from near and far, hoping to experience something miraculous.”
-Excerpt from Blessing My Mother's Rosary
Cultural explorer Carla Knorowski in Lourdes 1982.
"Lourdes is a place of calm and clarity. It is a place of constant hope and renewal."
-Carla Knorowski
Photo: Fortress from terrace of Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Lourdes, Pyrenees, France ca. 1890-1900 © Library of Congress