15 March - Day 13 - ‘Practice great gentleness toward the poor and toward everyone. Try to satisfy as much by words as by actions.’ Louise de Marillac

When I opened my emails yesterday morning, there were several from companies trying to sell me things. It being Mothering Sunday, they were clearly wanting to focus on this as a selling point. The commercial world and its blanket communications include comments such as ‘Celebrate Mothers Day with 60% off and ‘Mum’s Gardening Tips’. They don’t have time or need to consider individual circumstances.

Luckily, the Community of St Wilfrid’s Centre does have both the time and the commitment and so do the friends, who made time yesterday to send me a quick text acknowledging that it might be a difficult day. It was a good reminder to me that the language we use and the events we celebrate can mean very different things, depending on the circumstances and we always need to be sensitive to individual responses and situations throughout everything we do.

‘Great gentleness’ towards everyone, as Louise de Marillac said, seems a good way of doing this. Trying to demonstrate this as much through our words as our actions also seems an excellent way of approaching the week ahead. So - thank you again to all those people who added sponsorship over the weekend and have helped me to appreciate the blue sky on the way to work this morning.

A blue(ish) sky this morning - at last!