Back to Work

After a most unusual and trying month of April, I am back in Chicago--and I mean really back, having had to land on both feet. After all, our much-awaited (and somewhat complicated) Theology of the Body program begins this Saturday--and I'm coordinating it. It's not giving me much space to do what everyone at the funeral was urging: "Take care of yourself." (Maybe later? Like, June?)

With the help of DivineOffice.org and their generous offer to match funds up to half of our project goal, our online fundraiser more than provided for the expenses we have to face as we launch this new-to-us form of project. (What a relief!) Speaking of the Divine Office, I have to say that during this sorrowful time, I was more grateful than ever for the familiarity with the Bible that is the fruit of so many years of daily Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours ("Divine Office"). Little snippets of Scripture might come up (and in the oddest ways!), and I could not only recognize them as the Bible, but know where in the Bible they were from, and the whole context would rise in my mind, a reassuringly full message. I am still going back to the words on a T-shirt worn by the woman behind me on the Dillards escalator was wearing the day after Mom died: "Changed into his glorious image." What a reassurance from St. Paul (and from Mom)! What do people do who do not have such a store of Scripture in their memory?

Besides the TOB project, I am also organizing several years' worth of spiritual notes into a retreat for our sisters at the motherhouse. Please pray that these scraps of notes and torn-out Magnficat pages scribbled front and back with reflections will come together in a series of 8 meditations that will be helpful for the sisters during this concentrated time of prayer that is the spiritual center of their year. I would always tell Mom of my need for inspiration, and she would promise to pray to the Holy Spirit when she made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament (or sometimes two visits!). Now I need to count on her special intercession for that very familiar intention; may I be open to the inspiration her prayers obtain!

We said our formal good-byes to Mom today. Except...we have to do part 2 tomorrow. A severe storm flooded the cemetery. Mom's four surviving siblings were able to make it, along with numerous relatives (all the "Mobile cousins" came in, plus three more from Texas) and friends.

Later, at Mom's house, I was in the back yard with a grieving four-year-old. It was a whiplash-inducing experience, I assure you! For my 9 and 7 year old nieces, I was able to give my brother a book that was published after my experience of Dad's funeral. I created about a quarter of the content (activities and so on), and then a professional counselor completed the work.

Thank you all for the warm messages of condolence. I will go back to them over and over, I am sure, during these early weeks.

Mom's last message

At 10:45 this morning, surrounded by six of her seven children and her eldest sister, Mom left this life. My most cherished keepsake of her will probably be the page of a notepad on which she attempted to communicate her desire for Holy Communion:

The shaky handwriting was not typical of Mom, notwithstanding her 85 years. It is a sign of how weak she was a week ago. It took three sheets of paper before we "got" what she was trying to tell us.

During the nights I have spent alone in Mom's house, while my sister took the "night shift" in her room, I played an audio New Testament playlist continually through the night. When I would wake at night, I would hear a snippet of the Word of God that could help me to pray. Yesterday, I woke just as John 17 was beginning. The Gospel words were so apropos, I asked my siblings if we could put them on her memorial card: "I have made your Name known to those you gave me... and now I am coming to you."

If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have certainly acknowledged Mom's great and active faith, but I had always assumed it was Dad who was the real religious influence in our family. After all, he was President of the National Association of Holy Name Societies, active in St Vincent de Paul and in the local parish, and died within two minutes of receiving the Eucharist. These last three weeks showed me how incredible that faith really was, and how much I owe to it.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks so much. Rest in peace.

Good to know "You've Got a Friend"

I'm not ashamed to admit I remember when a song by that title was in the Top Ten. And it is good to know!
Our dear friends at DivineOffice.org have offered to support the Theology of the Body online fundraiser by matching donations up to half of our goal, to help make sure we meet it! God bless them profoundly.

If you donate, please go to the Facebook page of Divine Office Ministry and let them know how much you contributed. They'll match your gift, and bring us closer to covering the costs of (right now) the plane tickets we just bought for the two sisters coming in to do the camera work.

Special thanks to our first four donors! I'll offer one of my hospital rosaries for you tomorrow. Meanwhile, if you didn't see my "pitch," filmed right here in Mom's den on Sunday night, here it is:

Indiegogo campaign starts today

In the light of the horrific event in Boston, I am kind of embarrassed to post this today; but I do not know what tomorrow will bring with Mom, or when I would otherwise be able to activate the Indiegogo campaign, already so far behind schedule. As far as Boston, there is nothing to be said except prayers. I'm thinking St. Michael, really.

We had a really rough, heartbreaking day with Mom today. All seven of us are near; too bad the rules only allow three at a time! We kind of need each other's support. A priest-friend of the family, the same priest who anointed Dad the night before he died, came to the hospital to anoint Mom and pray with her.

All this drama at home has compromised the Theology of the Body project you have been hearing so much about from me. After all, in a community of just four sisters, there is no one else to keep the ball rolling! So during the evenings I have tried to do what I can. Last week I made some progress putting together a little crowd-sourcing fundraiser for the Theology of the Body class. It went live today.

I got special permission to present major donors (if any arise!) with the medallions I received for my work at the Vatican during the Jubilee Year 2000, and for another project involving Church and science. If you know someone who might be interested in helping us meet the expenses of this Year of Faith project, please share the link with them. Feel free also to share it on Facebook (there are links on the Indiegogo site).

Living in ICU

Lots of ups and downs...mostly downs lately. Mom had a great day on Sunday, doing well enough to give us hope that she would be off the ventilator by Tuesday at the latest. The very next day, she slipped down due to what we now learned is a kind of opportunistic infection. I'm learning that these ups and downs are quite typical of life in ICU.

Every time Mom wakes from sedation, she is surprised to find herself connected to all sorts of dripping and beeping things. She panics and we go to her side to calm her. (That does not endear us to the nurses, but they haven't seen how many times we've drawn Mom's arm down from the ventilator hose.) We have to explain to Mom that she has been in the hospital and is still very sick, and that the nasty tube in her throat is keeping her alive because she is not able to get enough oxygen on her own, and that the young man in her room is supposed to be there, doing what he's doing.

Yesterday, she managed to communicate in part through writing and in part through gesture that she wanted to receive communion. She had also repeatedly been trying to communicate something else very urgently. We just figured it out: she is offering all this up. I told her that with all this, she can empty purgatory, convert the world and make reparation for all kinds of sin. I am glad that she taught us this form of the lay priesthood, in which our own lives and experiences have value for spiritual good. It offers a layer of meaning that our suffering is not wasted; that we can be channels of grace in our weakness.

She does not realize that she is on life support. We (and she) had initially agreed to assistance in breathing under the assumption that it would be a matter of a day or two. With all the complications, it has been ten days now. Yesterday we were trying to ascertain her wishes and all we can do is ask leading questions. When she had written JE and then SUS, we asked, "Do you want to go to Jesus?" She responded with an emphatic head movement, "NO!" So we are confident that she wants all these measures. (A priest came this morning from the Jesuit parish where she was baptized and married, but Mom was too sedated at that time to appreciate the visit.)

We are glad that when she is awake she is all there, but it is extremely painful to see her unable to express herself, and we are walking a tightrope in terms of how much info to give her all at once. This evening she also managed to communicate how she feels. Sad.

In short, an ordeal like that faced by many families, but which we had been spared until now. We keep telling Mom that people all over are praying for her (one of the great benefits of the internet!); my siblings and I are very grateful for your continued prayers.

Can you take my place a minute?

Mom's healthcare crisis is preventing me from promoting the Theology of the Body class we will be hosting online starting May 4. I'd be so grateful if you could invite people you know to join us. Here is a flyer you can print out (or share the link to). It is especially good to share with deacons and "ministry people" in general.

With so much confusion in the area of marriage--people who are not just puzzled by Church teachings, but alienated from the Church or scandalized by what seems to be a rigid insistence on old rules, it is vital that practicing Catholics have a clear understanding of where the Church's teachings come from--and of how much beauty they uphold. That is why Pope John Paul spent almost five years offering these lessons.

If you haven't read any of his "TOB" talks, or have only heard references to Theology of the Body, why not join us? (Registration is now open for all 6 sessions.) You can go at your own pace: once a session has been recorded, you can log in later to watch it. Why not sign up for the first one (being recorded May 4) and get a taste?


If you can, I'd be very grateful if you shared the following on Twitter and Facebook:

Register now! Catholic Updating Series on the Bible and the mystery of marriage. Internet webcast starts May 4 www.ustream.tv/channel/TOB-TV Pls RT

Recognizing Mercy

As Divine Mercy Sunday opens this evening, I find that I am being challenged to recognize the forms that God's mercy takes. It doesn't always look like mercy, at least according to my very limited understanding. I'm still in New Orleans, spending the best part of each day in the ICU at Mom's side. Even though we don't know how things will turn out, it is a gift of Divine Mercy that I can be in the ICU at Mom's side. I'm having to remind myself of this; that one day I will look back on these days in the life of my family and mercy will be all I see.
It is a gift of Divine Mercy to have people all around the world supporting us in prayer. To have a member of the choir whom I really don't know very well at all send me a profound message of support. To have my high school classmates respond to my prayer request with letters and phone numbers "in case you need anything at all." To have six siblings to share all this with day after day. To be walking through the waiting room and have another patient's family ask me if I can call a priest to come anoint their brother, their son.
Heck, it's even a gift of Divine Mercy for me to be learning so much about critical care so I can refine my own health care directives.
None of this is mercy I particularly wanted to experience, of course, but that doesn't make it any less merciful.
A special gift of Divine Mercy was the reminder by a family friend that even before the possible loss of those dearest to us, it is the pinnacle of their life we are talking about. I received that as a reminder to focus more deliberately and consciously (and frequently) on Heaven.
Is there a "mercy" in your life that you needed time to recognize?

I really need it to be Easter all week

It's a special grace for me and my family this year to have this Easter Octave, all eight days of it, as a message of hope. Over the weekend we all converged on a hospital in New Orleans, where Mom is in ICU with a pneumonia that caught all of us by surprise. At 85, Mom has never had a "health crisis" in her life. (Well, I take that back. She had scarlet fever when she was 12, but none of us go back that far.)

She was diagnosed on Good Friday; actually, when she woke up feeling excrutiatingly weak, she called me first to ask for prayers ("to St. Joseph," she specified), then called my sister (the nurse). I saw her via Skype on Saturday, and that was enough for me to contact the provincial superior for permission to come home. My sister thought I might be "some comfort" for Mom; instead, we are all comforting one another.

Needless to say, we'd all appreciate your prayers. To St. Joseph, if you don't mind.