HAPPY MARCEL DAY!!!

Cupcakes and roses - or even cupcake roses - for everyone! 

Today is Marcel's feast, and we here at Miss Marcel's Musings are delighted to announce that in perfect imitation of our hero, we would have completely forgotten (or rather we had completely forgotten) except that another Miss Marcel West texted us waaaaay too early (but we were up even earlier!) to say Happy Marcel Day!

Yes, indeedy, happy Marcel day to all! How wonderful to have friends; they quite replace the need for a brain, and I am indebted to them for sure. 

But now that we know this is THE DAY OF DAYS for our little brother (and thus for us too), what shall we do to celebrate? I'm thinking of taking the poodle for a walk, going to Holy Mass, thanking Jesus for EVERYTHING, praying (please join me) for Bosco and his Mama, for Auntie D who very much needs prayers, and for a boatload of other beautiful intentions we'll float along in with sleeping Jesus. 

WAKE UP, JESUS! It's Marcel day! 

So now we are together, we have Jesus awake (more or less), and we have (at least on our to do list) cupcakes . . . what next? In order to celebrate with what I love best even before our cupcakes arrive, I thought I'd post links to a few of my earliest posts here: the ones that tell all about Marcel. He's such a constant companion that I can't give you anything better than his friendship. So here goes!

First:
Who is Marcel Van?
You'll find out HERE :)

And if, in your feast day revelry, that's not enough reading, how about a few more musings from our early days with Marcel HERE . . .

Which reminds me - a big THANK YOU to the original Miss Marcel East for suggesting, seven and a half years ago now, that I write a blog on Marcel. I so remember that hilarious suggestion which began, "Now before you kill me, let me just suggest this one idea . . ." or something along those lines. I had been so adamant I'd never write a blog, and then, KABAM! KABLOOEY! KAPOW! 
The idea hit me like a ton of bricks, and once I'd shaken the stars off (picture Charlie Brown when Lucy has just pulled away the football), I smiled, laughed, and said, "YES!"

The next thing I knew, our British agent, Jack Keogan, translator extrordinaire, emailed me to say that he had been thinking he ought to start something like a blog on Marcel, but yikes, he had just finished 20 years of translating Marcel, and it felt like a nice moment for someone else to start a blog on Marcel. And then, lo and behold, I did. Clearly this was the work of the Holy Spirit and our guardian angels in a great big conspiracy of Love!!!

Well, dear Jack, I can only say that it's my pleasure to take up where you left off . . . 

Fr. Boucher (Marcel's bearded Jesus) translated our little brother from Vietnamese into French.
You (Jack) translated Marcel from French into English.
And I, Miss Marcel, take as my mission to translate Marcel into . . . well, little tiny words of one syllable (or two if necessary) that convey:

Jesus thirsts for us.
He wants to sip us up like drops of dew.
Let's be sipped!

Or as our sister Therese puts it so beautifully:
Jesus does not demand great actions of us, but simply surrender and gratitude.

Or to put this even more simply (or at least in the one syllable translation):

Let go and let God.
And if you want to do more:
Thank Him!

But better than all of this are the words of Jesus Himself:

Let not your hearts be troubled . . . Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14)

If you're finding your heart rather naughty today, still feeling troubled despite every reassurance, welcome to the human race! And don't forget that this is the Little Way which means it's okay to do everything really badly, even the Little Way!

But here is why Marcel is MY FAVORITE PERSON EVER (right after the Blessed Trinity and Blessed Mother and good St. Joseph) . . . because he told us what Jesus said when He had to translate the gospel into our language of littleness. And what did Marcel say that Jesus said? Ah, I can't wait to tell you!

Jesus assures us over and over in His Conversations with Marcel that He not only loves us, but He also is pleased with us, and (as Therese keeps telling us too) He loves our littleness. In fact, thanks to our littleness, we get to hang out with the likes of Marcel. That's enough for me to want to stay unimportant and forgetful!

Speaking of forgetful, I've been trying really hard to remember to remind the whole world that this Friday, July 12 is the feast of St. Therese's beloved parents, Saints Louis and Zelie Martin. Since I forgot to tell you last week, and even a few days ago, I'm telling you now, but that means we have enough time for a mini-novena of 3 days on our way there from here. Perfect!

Since a novena means nine - usually days, but hey, if I can pay attention for nine seconds, I'm considering it a banner prayer week! - let's go for nine words this time! That way if you, like me, forget all about everything on this fun page the minute you're no longer looking at it (and there are many, many other wonderful things to look at in this world and the next, so please don't feel obliged to stay looking at this screen forever!), we'll already have said our novena to Louis and Zelie!

Here it is:

Little Flower in this hour show your power, please!

Hahahahahahaha. Marcel and I think this is so funny!
We figure this prayer has much to recommend it: 
1. We already know it.
2. It's easy to remember because it rhymes
3. It sounds so much like a hippy prayer from the 1960s but is really from a venerable (maybe not officially but really, really holy) Carmelite bishop in India in the 1930s!

But how to make it nine words AND a prayer in honor of Louis and Zelie?
Well, we just added "please" because they must have taught their little girls manners! And that makes it a novena of nine words!

Okay, if you're looking for something a little more impressive (ah, how quickly we fall off the Little Way :), here is a prayer Therese said after her Papa went to Heaven:

Remember that once on earth your joy was to love us. 
Hear the prayer of your children,
protect us and continue to bless us.
Up there you are reunited with our dear mother,
who preceded you to our celestial homeland.
Now in Heaven you both reign.
Keep watch over us. Amen.

And as always, we conclude with Therese's prayer from the Song of Songs:
Draw me, we will run!
​