Drinking Mary's Cool Aid

In honor of May, the month of Mary, and in conjunction with my live interview on Dina Marie on KBVM 88.3 in Portland this morning from 10-11 a.m. Central, I am re-posting this blog on Our Lady.  I'll be discussing Mary and Motherhood, so please join us at http://tunein.com/radio/Catholic-Radio-883-s31902/.  God bless!

Susan thought her Catholic friends had drunk the proverbial “Kool-Aid.” A staunch evangelical Christian, she was offended and angry after attending my sister-in-law Hedy’s Medjugorje Rosary group and witnessing what she considered to be “blasphemous” prayers being said to Mary. As Hedy continued to host Rosary groups, Susan felt obliged by conscience to end their friendship, convinced that Hedy was not only in idolatry, but was leading others astray through her devotion to Mary.

Susan and Hedy had become friends several years earlier through their children, as each had several kids attending the same school in the small Gulf Coast town of Pass Christian, Mississippi. The two families had grown very close—even taking family vacations together. But their friendship hit a breaking point when Susan and Hedy both became more fervent in their respective faiths, causing Susan to take a stand against Hedy’s perceived “idolatry”—a stand that left the friends and their families estranged for five years.

Eventually, Susan hit a personal faith crisis wherein she recognized that she could “talk the talk” of Christianity, but was unable to “walk the walk” toward the personal holiness she desired. After seriously reflecting upon the people that she knew who truly “walked the walk” as Christians, Susan came to the humbling conclusion that it was the Catholic women she had encountered along the way who had unequivocally treated her with kindness, patience, love and mercy. Though she still questioned their theology, she simply could not deny the fruit their lives bore.

“How could their lives be so full of the fruits of the Holy Spirit,” she asked herself, “when their faith is so theologically compromised?”   That question led her to a massive interior dilemma about the authenticity of the Catholic faith, which she felt simultaneously drawn to and terrified by. After much prayer and wrestling with God, Susan made a decision not to be led by fear. She returned to the Catholic Church, through which she had made a brief foray a few years earlier when she was confirmed Catholic upon her marriage into a large, Catholic family. (Susan was baptized Episcopal and raised as “nothing,” and her husband had ultimately followed her into Protestantism.)

Susan began to attend Mass and pray the Rosary, while going to the people she had accused of “idolatry” to apologize to them. Surprising even herself, she developed a great love for the Catholic faith, spending the next few years making beautiful handmade Rosaries “in reparation for my blasphemies against the Blessed Mother,” as she tells it.

Fast forward to 2014, when Susan called to ask me where she could buy copies of my book, Miracle Man (which happens to be very Marian, by the way. I, too, had wrestled with Hedy about her devotion to Mary at the same time as Susan—a story I tell in detail in the book. Let’s just say Hedy and the Blessed Mother won.) After meeting me on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans to buy six copies of Miracle Man, Susan gave the book to her anti-Catholic sister Elizabeth. None of us could have guessed what would happen next.

Elizabeth’s first reaction was severe annoyance at the book’s Catholic overtones and references to Mary, which she found offensive and irritating. But she pressed on to the finish, wanting to know how the story ends. By the time she closed the book, Elizabeth was weeping profusely, and she couldn’t stop crying. She went to bed perplexed, wondering why she had been so profoundly affected by the story.

During the night, she dreamt about “the most beautiful Lady” she had ever seen, who was surrounded by light and filled with a depth of love that Elizabeth had never before encountered. Elizabeth began to follow her, recognizing the Lady as the Blessed Mother. When she awoke, it was clear to her for the first time in her life why Catholics love Our Lady so much, and why she is placed in such high esteem. That story to be continued.

I can happily say that I have indeed drunk deeply of Mary, and oh, how sweet it’s been. She has led me into the heart of the fruit of her womb, Jesus. And He has led me into the heart of the fruit of His sacrifice on the Cross, the Eucharist. Food and drink like I’ve never tasted; the Bread of Angels, the Cup of Eternal Life. I’ll drink that cool, sweet aid any day.

Do Catholics Believe In Near Death Experiences?

With the immense popularity of “Heaven Is For Real” and other books about experiences in the afterlife,  the topic of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has taken front and center stage. Though the Catholic Church has no formal teaching on NDEs, plenty of people claim to have had one, including my late husband Bernie. The descriptions of these experiences often take on a tone of either Protestant Fundamentalism or the New Age. But Bernie’s experience was--would I dare to say--amazingly, authentically Catholic!

As a Catholic theologian who has taught the faith for fifteen years, I have never publicly addressed the topic of NDEs before. Those experiences fall into the category of what the Church calls “private” revelation—a topic I tend to stay away from when teaching Catholic doctrine. * However, Bernie’s life-changing NDE, chronicled in detail in my book Miracle Man, compelled me to share his incredible story with others. Why? Because Bernie’s “come to Jesus,” which he shared with me after miraculously waking up from a six week coma that was induced by a massive heart attack and multiple organ failure, highlighted some important truths of the Catholic faith that could use re-stating today. These include:

• We don’t get a “free pass” to heaven because we’re convinced we’re “a good person.”
• We are judged by God on the good or evil we have done in this life (Rom. 2:5-10).
• God, who loves each of us personally and infinitely, has gone and will go to great lengths to save us and bring us home to heaven.
• In the end, life and eternal life are about LOVE--and life on this earth is meant to teach us to love and be loved.

Bernie learned all of those lessons first hand during his NDE after suffering “the widow maker” in December 2008, which he inexplicably survived. Within a week of his heart attack, Bernie’s heart, liver, kidneys and lungs failed, leaving him comatose and on life support as doctors tried to save him—uncertain if he had any brain function left. Astoundingly, Bernie did an about face and began to recover, surprising his doctors and earning him the name “Miracle Man” among the hospital’s medical staff. He eventually woke up, was weaned off the ventilator and regained his ability to speak. Though still in the Intensive Care Unit, Bernie asked me one day if I wanted to hear about his Near-Death Experience.

I responded, of course, with a resounding “Yes!” Given the fact that I had prayed for his conversion for 24 long years and that I was at his bedside the night a nurse shocked his heart three times to keep him alive, I had a hunch he may have met God. But I never expected to hear what he said next.

“I died and I clearly remember it,” Bernie began.   “I saw my soul leave my body and was looking down on my body from above.” After describing in detail how he saw the condition of his soul, as well as the things he had done in his life that were pleasing and unpleasing to God, Bernie shared this zinger: “Judy, I followed the light all of the way to heaven. And when I got there, I wasn’t permitted to enter.” That from a man who steadfastly maintained that he was sure he was going to heaven because he was a “good person.”

Bernie was then sent back by God to make amends for his life, but not before meeting terrifying creatures that beat him brutally as they screamed in his ears repeatedly, “We’re here to help you!!!”  You’ll have to read the book to find out how the story ends (it’s nothing short of amazing), but suffice it for now to say that Bernie was a changed man after his NDE. So much so that he spent the last six weeks of his life telling me, “You have no idea how much God loves you…You have absolutely no idea how much God loves you!”

Because in spite of seeing his own inner darkness and his need for conversion and purification, Bernie’s overarching experience of his encounter with God was one of unfathomable love. Love that died on the Cross for his sins. Love that chased him down to beckon him into a relationship with Himself. And Love that waited to embrace him and welcome him home with the words, “You are my beloved son. In you I am well pleased.”

In the end, what matters most about “private” revelations like NDEs is the fruit they produce. In other words, they can be considered authentic insofar as they help us to “live more fully” by “Christ’s definitive revelation” (CCC par. 67). Christ revealed that God is love, and that Love holds us accountable for our lives and for our actions. Though those two statements seem contradictory in today’s world, they nonetheless contain the age-old truth of Christianity. That’s the truth Bernie discovered when he met God. And it’s the truth that would ultimately transform him and lead him to eternal life.

*(See the Catechism of the Catholic Church,  Par. 67 for the Church’s teaching on “private” revelation.)

What Holds The World Together

Blessed is the womb that bore you,

and the breasts at which you nursed.      

Luke 11:27

Cut away the umbilical cord, but don’t cut away the heart. Because the heart—the feminine heart—helps hold the world together.

I watched  with tears in my eyes yesterday as the women of the Our Lady of the Lake Altar Society processed up the center aisle of the church, carrying roses and bouquets for the annual May crowning while singing hymns to Our Lady.

 Triumph all ye cherubim! Sing with us ye seraphim! Heaven and earth resound the hymn! Salve, salve, salve Regina!

Hail, Holy Queen, we cry with such resounding joy that it carries a exclamation point! Why? Because we know that our salvation was and is contingent upon the intersection of divinity and humanity in Mary’s hallowed womb. We understand that the world and the Church need the balance of the feminine heart, the heart that mothers children, the heart that gives life, the heart that takes its piercings and releases the offering of blood, sweat and tears into the ground of its saplings, who move too fast from suckling to separating. But even as they pull away, a mother’s heart stays put.

Like the mother I spoke to yesterday, one of the three whom I call, “The Daughters of Jerusalem.” They can often be seen kneeling together praying for and suffering over their children. When I see them conjoined in prayer, I think of Jesus’ words: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children” (Luke 23:28). And I think of Our Lady, who was a daughter of Jerusalem.

“My daughter just had her first baby,” one of the women shared with me before Mass. “She asked when she can expect to get a good night of rest, and I told her you’re never going to sleep again!” she smiled. “Because mothers never stop lying awake at night worrying about their children!”

Then there’s the mother I see day in and day out in the chapel on her knees, praying and weeping for the teen who’s taken to cutting herself; her beautiful, beloved daughter who has turned against herself. I watch her wipe her tears; I see the broken heart she bears as she grips her Rosary with tired fingers and as she does not sit down, never sits down, the entire time she spends each day offering the raw-kneed sacrifice of her bleeding heart for the child to whom she gave life. That, the fruit of a mother’s love, consumed for the fruit of her womb.

And let’s never forget the Mother at the foot of the Cross, standing beneath her Son’s broken body so she can receive, let it fall on her face and her veil, His precious blood—the same precious blood that formed in her womb with her consent. Her primordial affirmation also made life possible for us, hence the adage of the Church Fathers: “Death through Eve, life through Mary.” There she stands beneath His battered flesh, her tears and sweat mixed with His, uttering the unceasing: “yes.” Yes until it’s finished. Yes as she receives His body from the Cross. Yes as He disappears from her sight.

It is good that we remember and sing praise.

Don’t tell me the Church wants us to deify Mary, for that would, indeed, be blasphemy.   But what we need, oh so desperately need in order to be human, is to experience and celebrate more deeply the feminine heart of the Church in this all too lopsided, hostile world.

May after May we remember the Woman who continually births Love into the world. Roses, crowns and hymns are hardly enough to recognize the feminine beauty found in Mary's heart, the axis that every Christian church and every woman in the world needs to reclaim.

Standing In Mama's Shoes

I'm proud to dedicate this blog to my beautiful Mama, Phyllis Landrieu.  I hope to have a fraction of your grace and courage some day.  Happy Mother's Day!  I love you!!!

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother. John 19:25

“My Mama’s given me big shoes to stand in,” I have frequently been heard to say. And it’s true. My mother is one of the smartest, most gifted, hard-working and energetic women I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing and loving. And did I mention that she’s beautiful? At eighty-one, she’s lovely, elegant and graceful. See for yourself.

But the thing I appreciate most about my Mama is that she’s taught me to stand strong in the face of suffering. She’s demonstrated in living color how to let love make suffering pregnant with life, and how to permit intense pain to bear great fruit. She’s shown me how to stand—yes, stand at the foot of the Cross—offering bitter tears and the sacrifice of a sword-pierced heart for the good of other souls. Reflecting on my Mama, I can’t help but think of the Blessed Mother, who gave us the first big shoes to stand in. And like my earthly mother, stand she did, even as her heart was breaking.

When my mother faced the shattering suicide of my thirty-five year old brother, Scott, sixteen years ago, she had a choice to make. She could turn in on her grief—focus on her sorrow and let it consume her—or she could let her suffering become a conduit of blessing for others. She chose to found a task force in Scott’s name, training school teachers to recognize and respond to the signs of sexual abuse in children. It was not until my late husband, Bernie, died that Mama shared with me a private letter she’d written to him upon the death of his own son, Marshall. Her powerful words encouraged Bernie not to let his grief defeat him, but to use it instead as an impetus to help others. She wrote:

 At first after Scott’s death, I wanted to remove myself from all of my activities, pull down into the lonely darkness...just sit and hold my pain. But the abused children kept calling me and I found an opportunity out of the darkness by working to open the Children’s Advocacy Center. I did it in Scott’s name and there is a picture of Scott on the wall…If I could relieve some child’s suffering, I could relieve some of Scott’s suffering, and mine…There are so many suffering, just as I am, with pain and disappointment. In helping them, I am helping myself...They dim my pain, and I am rejoicing that Scott is in some way helping them also.

Nine years after Scott’s death, Mama faced the unimaginable. She faced the loss of another child to suicide; this time it was her second born son, Stephen.  If anyone ever had a right to close the blinds, turn off the lights and call it quits, it was my Mama. Instead, she chose to found an educational center in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of New Orleans designed not only to educate poor children, but also to provide comprehensive healthcare for them, as many poor children have never been to a doctor or a dentist in their lives. Though Mama has faced numerous personal and health challenges in recent years, including recuperating from a brain injury caused by a fall and caring for my Parkinson’s stricken Dad, she passionately presses on to help “the children,” for whom she fervently believes we all bear a responsibility.

Yes, my Mama has given me big shoes to stand in, but mostly, she’s taught me to stand. To stand upright when life goes face down, to stand steady when the rug is pulled out from under your feet, to stand, and keep standing, when all you really want to do is crumble to the ground in a heap. She’s shown all of us, with incredible courage and grace, how to walk forward in the face of inconceivable adversity. She walks forward with her face set like flint, carrying in her heart the sacrifice of her grief—a sacrifice that may just give a poor, needy kid a chance at life.

Now those are some shoes worth wearing.

A Catholic Girl's Litany of Humility

This was too good not to share!  Enjoy this guest blog by my daughter, Kara Klein.  Happy Easter!

Oh, to be female, single and Catholic! A state of great ambivalence (or may we say, distress!) for all too many in today’s world. With the feminine desire to make a gift of herself through marriage in a society where people flee commitment, and with deep longings to bring forth life amidst a culture of death, the future for the devout Catholic female can sometimes look a little grim. While the problem of prolonged singlehood is deep, multi-faceted, and cannot be blamed on (nor solved with) one sex, race, or generation, what do we single Catholic women do while we wait for the desire of our hearts?

Like Mary, we say “yes” with a whole heart to Jesus Christ, who is Love itself, hope with joyful expectation, and learn to love right where we are.

We long for love, but sometimes we’re more focused on being the recipients. We want to be pursued, romanced, courted and carried off into the sunset—which is only natural, as it’s how God made us. But as women, we are called not only to receive love, but also to give it freely. Even now as we wait.

Perhaps this time of waiting for so many is a time of purification, as God refashions our hearts to seek to love rather than seeking to be loved by those around us. We need women today in our world who are willing to love sacrificially without counting the cost—for the sake of the other, and not for what that person gives them.

Can we young singles lay down the desire to be on pedestal for the desire to serve? Can we dare to put others before us? Dare to put Christ first? Dare to be content right where we are, to embrace our lives with gratitude as they are today, trusting that we are in God’s will? Can we dare to be humble?

My roommates and I recently wondered what a Catholic single girl’s Litany of Humility would look like. We came up with this:

From the desire of being stared at…

From the desire of being called, messaged, emailed, tweeted, Facebook stalked or Instagramed…

From the desire of being told I’m gorgeous…

From the desire of hearing there isn’t, never was, and never will be anyone else quite like me…

From the desire of a four-carat diamond ring…

Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being alone…

From the fear forever being a bridesmaid…

From the fear of gaining 5 more pounds…

From the fear of my ticking biological clock…

From the fear of the single life being my permanent vocation…

Deliver me, Jesus.

That others be pursued more than I…

That others get asked out more than I…

That others get married before I do…

That others have children even when I don’t…

That others be happier than I, provided that I become as happy I should…

Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, unafraid to be single till the day you died, hear us.

It hurts to stop looking for the love we long to have, to stop demanding love, and instead, search every day for ways we can offer it to the world around us. But as a priest once told me, “In becoming a woman, you must be the one to love, to serve, to give, and you will find the joy you are looking for.”

Birthing Grace

I wish I could have captured that moment in time. Forever. It was silent, sacred, sacramental.

I stood at the bedside of my daughter, Gaby, on Holy Saturday morning as she prepared to give birth. The room was cool and dimly lit, filled to the brim with the anticipation of new life. As I closed my eyes to pray for a safe delivery between Gaby’s instructed pushes, I entered into the sacrosanct silence of the room; the quiet hush of awe and reverence that comes in waiting for a child to be born.

Only one sound pierced the stillness—the steady beat of the baby’s heartbeat registering on the monitor rhythmically: thump, thump, thump.

Standing with my eyes shut tight, listening attentively to the baby’s heartbeat, I sensed the heart of Jesus pulsating with love for the world. Thump, thump, thump, I heard the God-man’s heart ringing out. I thought about the meaning of Holy Saturday—a day of anticipation, a time of looming rebirth, a period of waiting for the full bloom of love to burst forth from God’s heart, the same heart that had been silenced on Good Friday. It was a fitting day for Rose Grayson to be born.

Rose’s annunciation came the week before her father learned he had cancer, ushering in what would become a “Triduum” kind of year. A young family discovering they were pregnant and facing the reality of human mortality in one sweeping breath, moving from happy excitement to fear and grief, embracing the mysteries of life and death all at once. The hopeful expectation of a new baby, made present alongside the agony of not knowing the outcome of a cancer diagnosis. Baby readying, and the accompanying labor of cancer testing, surgeries, and waiting for results. The paradox of the cross, presented with penetrating clarity.

Then came the final prognosis: cancer free! And the ultrasound news: a girl, the first to join three brothers! I watched the little family move out of Good Friday as healing rays came and life resumed its course with renewed vigor and purpose. And now it was Holy Saturday, the day of Rose Grayson’s birth.

The womb is not unlike Jesus’ tomb, I pondered, waiting to see Rose’s tiny face. In a place of dark silence, an enclosed border establishes a clear boundary with the world, and life secretly does its bidding until the darkness is overcome with a burst of brilliant light. Suffering offered and labor pains become cries of joy: He is Risen! It’s a girl!

In the silent enclosure of a birthing room, I gave thanks to God. Grace has ushered in a resurrection. God has given us “Rosie Grace.”

Your death, Lord Jesus, is our life . Your grave the womb of radiant light.

Hymn for Holy Saturday Evening, The Vigil of The Resurrection

Catching the Faith

Please enjoy this re-post of my last Easter blog.  This Easter, I was busy welcoming my new granddaughter, Rose Grayson, to our family.   She is blessed to have three big brothers and her parents, Gaby and Grayson, to pass the faith to her. Happy Easter!

“Christos Anesti ek nekron, thanato thanaton patisas, kai tis en tis mnimasi zoin harisamenos,” my little grandsons chanted in unison as I watched happily in surprised silence. “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs, granting life,” the boys rang out in Greek, singing the ancient paschal troparion taught to them by my son-in-law, Grayson. Five-year-old James looked entranced, while two-year-old John-Henry danced around the room, slapping his hips and throwing his hands into the air to provide dramatic effect at just the right moments. Even baby Joseph, who just turned one, chimed in.

“Catholicism is caught, not taught,” I thought as I observed the children singing, remembering the familiar adage from Catholic theology that I’ve quoted numerous times to my students. “We don’t sit a one-week-old infant down and tell him everything he’ll ever need to know about the Catholic faith,” I’ve explained repeatedly when teaching how the truths of our faith are passed down in tact from one generation to the next.   Instead, we start with songs, pictures and simple blessings. We take the kids to Mass, point out statues and stained glass windows, and maybe light a candle for those we love. We read Bible stories, whisper prayers in the dark when bad dreams invade the night, and sing—in Greek if we so desire—the deep mysteries of our faith, learned on an I-phone while riding in the van. That’s how our children catch the faith, and it’s how we, in turn, catch it back from them.

Catholicism has been “caught” for two thousand years the very same way; that is, through the habits of a living Church that hands on its living faith via time-honored practices that grow organically and culturally throughout history. We call these practices “traditions,” and they are meant to embody and express Sacred Tradition--which is the Truth that Jesus deposited into the Church through His life, death and resurrection, and through the relationships and institutions He established.

The concept of living faith comes down to us from our Jewish ancestors, and was embraced by the Christian Church:

“Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

In other words, we are to let our faith in God permeate everything we think and say and do. Which doesn’t mean that we’re on our knees 24/7, or that we escape our broken human condition. It does mean, however, that we invite God into all things, and that we remember that He is with us at all times.

Part of the crisis we are facing in our Christian culture is the direct result of the dichotomy that exists between faith and life, due in large part to a modern world that compartmentalizes and hyper-specializes every aspect of life. Our lives have become neatly divided into measurable functions and categories, reducing the expression of Christian faith to a perfunctory Sunday visit. But it is not meant to be so. Our fathers in faith reminded us that the “split between the faith which many profess and (our) daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”* Further,  they teach us that harmony should exist between our faith in Christ and all of our earthly activities.

I heard that harmony Monday night in the voices of little children, as they chanted, “Christ is risen from the dead” during a family vacation. Yes indeed, they are catching the faith. And they’re throwing it back to me.

*Par. 43, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican Council

Holy Hope for Holy Week

Holy Week is the perfect time for personal and spiritual reflection.  To that end, I offer the below reflection entitled, "Holy Hope:  Is There Any Other Kind?"

Discover the difference between secular hope and Holy Hope, and unlock the biblical secret that turns meaningless suffering to hope! Please press play to listen to this two-part, 56 minute talk.

May the Lord grant you an abundance of graces, blessings and HOPE this Holy Week and during the coming Easter Season.

In Christ,

Judy

Holy Hope: Is There Any Other Kind? Part One

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Holy Hope: Is There Any Other Kind? Part Two

[audio mp3="http://memorareministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Holy-Hope-with-Judy-Landrieu-Klein-pt-2.mp3"][/audio]

Miracles and Hope: An Online Mini-Lenten Retreat

God works in the world, and no matter the suffering He allows in our lives, He also speaks to us through miracles and hope. My dear friend, Mary Lou McCall interviewed me about my experiences of suffering and grace that I chronicled in my book Miracle Man. I would love to hear your stories, too! Join the conversation in the comments section or on Facebook.

Miracles and Hope Interview Mary Lou McCall and Judy Klein Miracle Man from Champions of the Truth on Vimeo.

Requiescat In Pace

I feel called to share this excerpt from Miracle Man on the sixth anniversary of Bernie's death.  I wrote this final "Bernie Update" to our family and friends days after his funeral on the Feast of St. Joseph.  The Miracle Man taught me all about persevering love, and our journey together infused my being with Holy Hope… the hope that is borne of suffering and birthed through love.    Bernard Joseph Klein, rest in peace.

March 22, 2009,  Final Update

Dear Friends:

Bernard Joseph Klein was buried on the Feast of St. Joseph on Thursday, March 19, 2009. When we awoke, a dense fog covered the area, but by the time we arrived at Our Lady of the Lake Church, the sun had broken through, ushering in a glorious sunny day. It is difficult to share what is in my heart, but I would like to give you a glimpse of the day in Bernie's honor.

The funeral liturgy was absolutely beautiful, as we were graced with the angelic voices of Kitty Cleveland and the St. Scholastica Academy Choir under the direction of a most gifted pianist and friend, Sharon Scharmer.  Fr. John Talamo, Fr. Beau Charbonnet and Fr. Robert Cavalier honored us by presiding over the liturgy, and their presence on the altar in gold robes made present to us Christ's priestly presence in heaven—sacred, redemptive, all-powerful. I have never been so happy to be Catholic as I was on Thursday. I stood in awe and wonder as I watched the rich symbolism of the funeral Mass unfold, reminding us of Bernie's baptismal vows, his presence at the heavenly banquet of the Lamb of God, his marriage to the Eternal Bridegroom. As sad a day as it was, it was equally joy filled thanks to the consolation of the hope of heaven, and the love of our family and friends—all tangible and very real to me as I stood in the church with the symbols of heaven before my eyes surrounded by people who love me, Bernie and our family.

When the funeral Mass ended, we processed to the cemetery of St. Joseph Abbey, where many of the monks and priests of our archdiocese are laid to rest. It is holy ground, full of silence, prayer and majestic oaks. As we drove up to Bernie's gravesite following the hearse, seven Marines stood at full attention waiting for his arrival. It took my breath away to see them standing there and to remember how proud Bernie was of serving in the Marine Corps—the place where he found his personal gifts and his identity as a man. A twenty-one-gun salute and "Taps" followed our prayers, along with the folding of the American flag accompanied by Kitty's gorgeous voice singing "Amazing Grace." It was a moment none of us will soon forget.

 After the services concluded, we made our way to the home of our dear friends, Angele and Gary Darling. Gary is an incredible chef and he laid out a delicious banquet for us, including his famous Jamaican Jerk Chicken Salad and Mediterranean Hummus. We ate, laughed and cried as we remembered Bernie and his unique personality. A gentle wind blew through the French doors that were open throughout the house, and the Holy Spirit was very present as we shared a meal and fellowship in remembrance of Bernie. I returned home that evening with my heart full, feeling as though I had been to a wedding reception instead of a funeral. It was a happy ending to a day I had dreaded and prayed against for months —the funeral of my spouse.

 As I write these words, my heart is full of gratitude for Bernie's love and life. I am grateful for his illness and for three months spent in a hospital room filled with tender moments of love and grace. I am grateful for the outpouring of support, love and prayer that came forth in the midst of such a profound personal tragedy. And I am grateful to God for his faithfulness, and for the reality that he continually seeks after us, wooing us with opportunities to know and embrace his Fatherly love. In the end, that was what this journey was all about—for Bernie and for me.

Thank you for your love and for carrying Bernie on the wings of prayer into the arms of Our Lord. I am eternally grateful, and I know he is too.

With love and thanksgiving.

Judy