Home from Rome!

I'm back from Edinburgh, and have a lot of Edinburgh living--and email--to catch up on, so you can expect to see me back on Monday.

I will tell you that I met a READER I had never met before just outside St. Peter's Square, and she took me to a lovely place to eat in Vatican City and told me her story. It was a very beautiful, very difficult story, and it was also a spoken Auntie Seraphic letter.

One thing about being Auntie Seraphic is that when I go somewhere to talk about Single Life--or just go somewhere--readers take me to some quiet place and tell me their stories. It is very moving and humbling, and it gives me the opportunity to do what I was trained to do, and cannot do over the internet, which is to listen and ask insightful questions, hoping that I will ask the right ones.

This is why I so often advise people to talk to a priest or other trusted counsellor, telling them the exact same things they told me. Sometimes you need a trusted person to be with you in the flesh when you are trying to figure out what to do.

I won't tell you the beautiful, difficult story in any detail, but on Monday I will explain the central mystery, which is that there is Something (or, perhaps, Somebody) in our hearts telling us what to do and what not to do, no matter how difficult or painful it is to do it or not to do it. If you listen to that Voice, then although you will be unhappy for a while, you will still be in touch with that Voice. But if you go against the Voice, then you are in danger of losing it.

On Monday I will talk more about this. In the meantime, have a lovely weekend, and be gentle with yourselves and each other.