As I have been pretty sleepless the last few nights due to
illness and especially since Dick passed away, I pulled up the ever-calming
Bible in my iPhone’s Laudete app and asked the Holy Spirit to guide me to a
soothing passage to help me through my grief.
One of the Gospel passages that I found right off was Mt 8:23-27.
As Jesus got into a boat, his
disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that
the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him,
saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you
terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the
sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man
is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”
It brought back some very early childhood memories for
me. At about 5 or 6 years old, I
remember crying to my mom and asking, “Does everybody die?” I wasn’t prepared
for her answer. She told me the
truth—that is everybody dies, but nobody knows when, except God, so I didn’t
need to worry about it. But I did. Unless I could fall asleep or be busy with
something else. The thought of death occupied my thoughts on a daily basis,
especially since Mom made us pray the Rosary every night. The last line of the Hail Mary prayer is "Pray
for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." To my overactive but naive mind, this meant
two things: I had been a bad kid and
death was imminent. Of course, since
then I have come to know and love our Blessed Mother and the prayer she
gave us. It has helped me through
countless times of worry and grief.
We used to visit Grandma and Grandpa pretty regularly. We
had to drive past Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery to get there. Looking at the headstones and mausoleums would
get me thinking about my mortality every time!
I got pretty good at recognizing landmarks and knew when we were getting
close, so I would always hide my head and try to think of something else or
fall asleep because the thought of dying terrified me.
Eventually, though, I stopped being preoccupied with the
thoughts and only occasionally would think about my own death. I think that’s because when my reasoning
kicked in about 7 or 8 (arguably) I figured IF I kept out of trouble and IF I
didn’t get hit by a car or some other tragedy didn’t befall me, I still had
another 60 or 70 years and that was a long time. They might find a cure for death by then. I
think another reason I stopped worrying about dying was that I started
Catechism classes and found out that God created us because He loved us and He
loved us because He created us and that death in this life is just the beginning
of our intended life with Him in Heaven.
While meditating on the Gospel the Holy Spirit was so right
in guiding me to, I realized that even these men who were in the boat with
someone whom they believed to be the Messiah, they were still afraid of death.
The lesson He taught them is the same lesson we can learn today. If we truly
have faith in His love and mercy, we have nothing to fear. It’s interesting to
me that these men who were afraid of death in the boat are the same men who
later gladly gave up their lives to preserve the faith (except John, who we
know died a natural death—although he did have his share of suffering). I can only hope to be as brave when my time
comes. What I can say is that I no longer fear death. But I'm not
sure I welcome it, either. There is a lot more I can do for the Lord before I
am called to my rest. I think I’m like my mom in that regard. I
think I still have lots and lots of prayers to say. And much more penance to do.
