Vechnaja Pamjat'!

I love this photo and just had to share. Russian nuns give the last kiss to Patriarch Alexiy in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior today. The Moscow Patriarchate website reports that the line to enter the Cathedral is many hundreds of meters long. I was blessed to personally meet and receive the blessing of Patriarch Alexiy in 1994 and to see him again (from a crowd) in the subsequent years. I also have been blessed to have visited Russia multiple times over the past 14 years, watching as the Church there has been transformed under his leadership. Tonight my heart wishes to be standing in that line on the cold Moscow street, waiting for my turn to give the last kiss. May His Memory be Eternal! Vechnaja Pamjat!

For moments like this . . .

On the hardest, most exhausting homeschooling days, I try to remember moments like this. I'm glad my sons are slowly learning to be best friends. Of course, most days they fight over the swing. But one day last week, for 10 minutes they worked it out. And it was magical.