Love's Ultimate Gift

Coincidences, imagination working overtime, or answer to her prayers to Saints Priscilla and Aquila, patron saints of those seeking a good marriage to a good man, a soulmate to emulate the love and commitment her parents share. Paula Freda writing as Marianne Dora Rose presents "Love's Ultimate Gift," a clean and wholesome Christian romance for hearts of all ages. Do you believe in miracles? ...
Excerpt: "As was her custom at the end of the last Mass on Sunday afternoons, Priscilla waited for the congregation to exit, and the sacristan to dim the lights, leaving only the soft pale rays of sunlight filtering through the glass-stained windows, transforming the Church proper into a haven of quiet calm and peace. Priscilla needed that calm and peace to stand before the icon of her patron saint to unburden her heart’s longings and desires.
It was rare not to find a few supplicants like herself, praying before the ornately framed painting of the Byzantine icon of St. Prisca and Saint Aquila, that hung on the side wall a little ways from the Altar. Saints Prisca and her husband Aquila were known as the Patron Saints of a Good Marriage both for young and old. They were also known as Patron Saints of Missionaries spreading the word of the Lord throughout the world.
Priscilla, Prisca in ancient Latin, meant venerable. Aquila, in Greek, Roman, and Hebrew, stood for eagle, keen-eyed, steadfast. Twenty-six-year-old Priscilla had been praying to the saintly couple since her early teens.
She had first heard of the saintly couple in a sermon at Sunday Mass. Prisca and Aquila, noted for their deep love for each other, were Christian converts, and close friends of the Lord’s apostle, Saint Paul. Several times Paul cited in the Bible their friendship and their sheltering him from persecution, along with their accompanying him on his missionary work to spread Jesus’s teachings. Priscilla felt a kinship to the saintly couple.
Blessed with parents deeply in love, committed to the Good Lord and to each other, and to her, she treasured that love and commitment, especially since graduating college and moving on her own, learning to miss her parents now that seeing them daily was a thing of the past. Gentle, kind, loving parents, often over-protective. The once-teenager yearning for adulthood and leaving home to live free on her own, near her job as a veterinarian assistant, now missed not seeing Mom and Dad daily, and looked forward to weekly visits with them.
It was no surprise to her that her fondest wish was to find a good man, a soul mate, to emulate the love and commitment she had watched her parents share through good times and bad, through healthy times, and times of illness, through joyous and sorrowful times,..."

Excerpt 2: Engrossed in her prayer, Priscilla barely noticed a ray of sunshine filtering through the glass-stained window on the opposite of the church proper portraying the images of Jesus and Mary, one hand placed against their hearts, and the other extended with welcome and love, The sun ray bathed her and the portrait of the icon in a spectrum of red, yellows and blues. But a young man entering the quiet church and choosing a pew in the back to kneel and pray, noticed. Mesmerized, he thought, was it a miracle? Then he suppressed a chuckle. He believed in miracles, but he was also a logical man, not one to jump to conclusions or plays of the imagination. Sunrays filtering through glass-stained windows was a common occurrence at this time of the afternoon in the dimmed lighting in a church this size and so beautifully adorned. Just a soave coincidence in the peace and quiet, and candlelit interior. Just a coincidence that the sun ray cascaded and enveloped the portrait and the woman gazing up in prayer at the portrait.