Gracefully is written by Sister Kate Holmstrom, a Holy Child Sister, resident at a care home in Harrogate, who has just turned 85 years old.
Sister Kate has contributed a number of pieces to Growing Old Grace-fully.
Sister Kate introduces Gracefully as follows:
“Many sights, gestures or even sounds may be perceived as graceful. They resonate, perhaps, with an inner grace inhabiting a person – an open, positive attitude attuned to what is good, true, righteous, beautiful. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they are ready to welcome countless riches and enjoy life!”
Gracefully
Growing old gracefully. With grace. Ageing: a grace.
Graceful rhymes with grateful,
And gracefully sounds like: graciously.
Little girls dancing, gymnasts leaping and bounding,
Flying, seemingly without effort, defying gravity.
Why do graceful movements, or the clear song of a blackbird
Strike an almost physical chord of beauty within us?
A smile is a grace, irradiating a tired face
And gracing the recipient.
How is it that an ageing body can seem clumsy, ungainly
Even painful, to the one who inhabits it?
Yet the soul within can be stirring, growing, soaring forward
Borne up by the Spirit, the very breath of her Creator.
Hail Mary, full of grace, pray for us as we are now,
In this moment, (this Moment)
That the hour of our death may be grace-filled,
That final, gracious grace.