Greetings in Christ, all!
Last weekend, we heard the sad news that Fr. Dan is being transferred to Durand and Gaines: times of transition are always hard and I encourage us to pray for Fr. Dan, for his two new parishes and that God sends us more priests.
I was very touched and happy with people’s response to the letter we sent out last week about the campaign and I can’t wait to see what God does in and through us over these next few months. As you pray for the “Restoring the Temple” campaign, I ask you to pray for all of us to work together in peace and mutual trust, following our Lord’s lead. When all is said and done, we hope to start on our new Church and parking lot next Spring…Come Holy Spirit!
This Wednesday is the 3rd anniversary of my mother’s death. She fought a long, hard battle with Alzheimer’s and us kids were able to take care of her at home. I miss her every day and her wonderful example. I’d like to share with you some excerpts from the homily I gave at her funeral:
She saw the Lord in it all-not just the beautiful baby giggling, but in the horrors and crucifixions of being a broken person in a broken world. I can’t tell you what that meant and means to me to be loved and raised by a woman who saw the Lord in everything…
Mom loved Jesus. With every cell in her body, she loved God. Because of that, she loved us all with an intensity that is impossible to describe.
Her sincere conviction that God loved her put a steel in her heart that was absolutely, positively unbreakable. Because God loved her so deeply and because she loved Him back, she could weather any storm of gossip, hateful comments, neglect, trials or tribulations. In the words of Proverbs 31, she laughed at the days to come.
We, as a family, were with her at the end and no kidding, Mom didn’t just die, Mom was finished. For 77 years, Mom grabbed every moment that God offered her in life and she seized it: she laughed like no one else, she cried with intensity and a depth that would break your heart. She sang with gusto, she prayed with fire, she worked like a crazy woman, she rested with relish, she hugged you as if the world was ending, she traveled the world and gazed on wonder after wonder-I can’t tell you what it was like to live with and around such a person.
It’s hard not to give her resume. It’s hard not to tell you the extraordinary things she accomplished: Every joy, every pain, every experience God threw at Mom-but that’s not her. Her love for God and her trust in God’s love for her is what is important and the best thing about her.
In the last days, I was blessed to hold her hand as she died. While I sat there with her, I kept whispering over and over “I am filled with gratitude for you.”
I was and I am.
I thank God for this amazing woman. She shined.
May God bless us with the courage to love fiercely.
fjk