The subject tonight is Love And for tomorrow night as well, As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic For us to discuss Until we all Die!
Hafiz
It’s been my brother Mark’s birthday today. He would have been 56. (1970-2015) I was thinking about love and letting go. I actually don’t like the phrase “letting go.” To me it sounds like sending someone away, like forgetting them. I hate that.
However somebody pointed out to me this morning that loosening my grip this Christmas on our family traditions, my ability to be more open to doing something new and allowing our Christmas to unfold in the new family we are, was a letting go. The fact that I was OK today on my brother’s birthday though a little sad at times, and that I was OK not doing anything in particular in his honor necessarily, was letting go.
That sounds a little scary for me but it’s alright. I am always afraid if I don’t try hard to remember and keep everything I know about them, I will forget the people I have lost. I really fear that. I don’t want them to be far away from me- like childhood friends whose names I can’t really remember anymore. I don’t want to let them go.
Then I thought about how love is a living thing. Love changes and grows as the people in the relationship do. Love is not static. It isn’t only in the past. Love isn’t diminished by change In fact love deepens as people adjust and sacrifice in the midst of and because of it they grow together and for one another.
The love between my brother and me is a living thing. Death has changed our situation drastically. Love has had to adjust and change and grow with that. But death can’t take away love. And maybe that is what it means to let go; when I don’t need to force anything to feel connected, or struggle to wrest back any little scrap death has left behind when it raided my family and took so many people away. Maybe letting go is to be able to trust that love just is and I can let it be itself.
My dad used to say that my brother probably loved me more than anyone on the planet loved anyone. What if I can trust that he still does? He always loved me just as I was. I loved him like that too.
I love my brother as he is right now, even not quite knowing what that is like to be him right now. When I get there with him I expect to love him even more. Death can’t do anything about that.
.So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
It’s been an eventful year for us, with its triumphs and its various ups and downs, just as everyone has. My youngest, Roise, graduated college from Sam Houston State and began the graduate program she wanted where she is doing great. My eldest, Maire, just had a new baby we are all crazy about. Valor is a wide eyed baby with a lopsided smile and a face that looks more “finished” than the faces of babies usually do. My other three grandchildren, Arelani, Blaze and Brazos, have become funnier, more creative and smarter even than they used to be. Or maybe it is that I am listening better. I enjoy them very much. Arelani is into crafts, science, fixing things, and putting things together with a box of parts, a couple tools, and an instruction manual. I don’t understand that at all. She makes the most ingenious things. She makes me laugh every day.
Blaze and Brazos are into running around out in the country, climbing trees, hauling beaches for their mom, filling their pockets with rocks, that sort of thing. The boys and I have a routine of reading from the series Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and watching The Hoof GP together. That last one I don’t understand either. But we like it. They will cuddle up to me and watch it. It’s a You Tube show from a Scottish Hoof Trimmer. There is just something fascinating about it. They are the sweetest little boys.
My dad turned 75 this year. and I turned 58. We are growing old together. He was just a kid when he had me. He and my step mom take good care of themselves and I fully expect them to live forever.
My new book, Meeting the One Who Loves you; the way of prayer of St. Teresa of Avila was released this summer. I hope it does what St. Teresa and Jesus want it to do for its readers, and gets into the hands of people who are supposed to read it. I try not to worry about how it’s doing. My last one did so well I worry my new book baby won’t get as much attention. But I only need to trust it will do what God wants it to do.
My young dog, Daisy, died suddenly this summer. We still don’t know why. I think it was a killer bee. (We saw some under our car port). The vet couldn’t save her. We all miss Daisy. Our other dog, Joey certainly misses her. However, we are recovering well. I haven’t decided whether to get another friend for Joey. He looks bored in the back yard without her.
I planted a couple of vegetable gardens- something new to me this year.
Roses I am used to and I planted more of those too. I always will plant more roses. I want this place covered in a wild, lovely tangle. I have a dying elm tree in my front yard. It’s sad. However, I planted an Old Blush climber next to it. I plan for it to wrap around it, for rose laden vines to hang down from its branches. Then it will be a rose tree. I have done that before at the house I raised my kids in and it looked like fairy land. It smelled amazing too.
We almost lost one of the young special needs guys I take care of this year. Mac got pneumonia which is very dangerous for him. Unbelievably he made it through and has even recovered far more than we thought possible for him. He is doing great. I thank God for this all the time.
I started a new second job this year too, for another young’n with special needs. I pick him up after my first job and spend the evening with him. He’s fun and I have loved getting to know his sweet family.
I have read plenty of books this year as always. I don’t know how many. But since I read a book about every 4-7 days I suppose it would make quite a stack. I’ve developed and interest in T. Kingfisher books and the like. I read one after another.
I’ve lost myself in lots of music. I found plenty of new stuff I am happy with exploring. There is still plenty of weird, interesting music out there, and people still create plenty of beauty. Of course I still love the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. And hey “King’s X forever!” I still make coffee and listen to jazz every day at 2pm. I mostly like hard bop and straight ahead jazz. And sometimes you just need Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
Sometimes you need something fun and different.
I still have chickens, though those traitors spend most of their time at the next door neighbor’s house. They are an elderly couple and they love the chickens so it’s alright. They still come home too. I love having them around, scratching and pecking and being hilarious in the yard. They are Clementine, a crazy game hen, and Jewel, a fat brown hen. They are friends with a wild guinea in the neighborhood who lost its mate. So now it hangs out with my chickens. Its name is either Fred or Lola. I can’t tell which one the remaining one is. However it was lonely so I am glad it hangs around.
My cats are relaxed and happy. Every time I open the door, one is coming in or going out. Whatever they want to do. Presently there are three sleeping on my bed. I have three orange girls; a mother and two of her daughters. These are Annie, the mom, and Dia and Buttercup (don’t blame me my granddaughter named her Princess Buttercup). My daughter has Frankie, a temperamental black cat with beautiful green eyes.
I had a great birthday this year. I felt very loved by family and friends. Plus, I told my friends I wanted a pie in the face at my birthday dinner and they actually did it! It was so funny. I also have been wanting to start a “Little Free Library” in front of my house and my friends made it happen! On my birthday night Maire and I and the kids went to see my youngest daughter, Roise, play and sing with her band, The Fragments, over at Black Water Draw. We had a great time; great music and kids running in circles around our table, us handing the baby around, everybody happy. I love that.
I visited the major relics of St. Therese this year with my youngest daughter and my granddaughter. I have thought a lot about how I felt about that. I wrote about it too. But when I look back at it I think what comes through is how little I felt, how I could see all my wounds in a general way, and that I was seen by God and I was OK. I also felt my love for Therese and that was overpowering to me. I don’t feel a lot of big feelings these days. And I never cry even when I do feel them. That day I did both and I was kind of surprised. I’m glad too.
I also gave a talk at Little Flower Basilica in San Antonio this Advent on The Prayer of Recollection. I think it went well. I gave a handout to everyone there to take home and practice the prayer even if they didn[t have the book yet. I took them through a brief guided version of the prayer. I made my dumb jokes. 🙂
As we get ready for Christmas this year, I notice I feel different than I usually do. Christmas is a mixed bag for me as it is for most people- especially for us who have lost people we loved. I’ve kind of hated Christmas. As a neuro-divergent person, the executive function that appears to be required is overwhelming for me. It’s not even a lot but it totally freaks me out. I see the lovely things other people do for their friends and neighbors. Sometimes I can do some of that stuff and sometimes I can’t. I get really scared of forgetting someone. I worry about what to get or what to do.
And there is grief that comes up of course.
It used to be very important, after losing almost everyone I always spent Christmas with except my kids, that I keep up traditions we always had when I was raising my daughters. This is the first year I have kind of let Christmas happen. I usually have my daughters and my kids over to decorate the tree and make cookies. The kids love this. But I also do Advent candle lighting and prayers, and there is a certain order of me putting the star up at the end and us singing “I want to walk as a child of the Light.” when the tree is finished. We have always listened to Dead Can Dance’s album, “Aion” when we decorate the tree.
This year I was working and when I got home everyone was here. They already had music; traditional and pop Christmas songs on. They had the boxes of decorations out from the garage. Everyone was happy. We decorated the tree randomly. Some things I always put up first, almost in a ritual manner because they were my mom’s or from my first married Christmas. I didn’t do that. I put the delicate ones up and let everyone do whatever. Brazos wanted to put the star on the tree so my daughter Maire lifted him up and let him. I quietly lit the Advent wreathe while everyone was talking. Maire smiled at me from across the table. It was good. I just let Christmas happen.
Christmas Eve I’ll make enchiladas, beans and rice as I usually do. Maire is bringing the drinks. And Christmas will happen.
I look forward to the sense of tenderness I eventually know when things quiet down after mass and the candles are blown out. That’s when I think the morning star rises in our hearts, whatever we may be feeling. It still does. Jesus is here. He comes no matter what. And we can let that happen.
St. Teresa of Avila talked about the role of the contemplative as a standard bearer. She described the holder of the guidon of Jesus, of love, as having the one goal to hold the banner high no matter what chaos whirls around him, no matter if he is cut to pieces. If the standard bearer should fall, he must struggle to his feet again to hold high the symbol that urges on those in battle, gives them hope, lets them know their comrades are nearby when their courage flags.
I have thought a lot in the past couple of days about what was wrong with me in the midst of the chaos; meaning the violence of thought word and deed since the public murder of Charlie Kirk. I couldn’t hold the banner so much. It wobbled, as Winnie the Pooh would say of his spelling. It wobbled, shook, slipped as I took in entirely too much of what was going on. I have CPTSD and it’s important for me to guard how much craziness I absorb. Also I am an empath type person. I feel what people are feeling deeply. I don’t know about you but the last couple of days have triggered me badly. I have felt like a microcosm of the macrocosm of horror and rage, of compassion and sympathy, of fear and dread. My fight or flight has been FIGHT as usual. I too want to fill my mouth with argument along with everyone else.
St. Teresa would be the first person to say our real war is against ourselves. she advised us to return again and again to “the room of self knowledge.” Well today I am trying that.
Simeon the Prophet told Mother Mary that a sword would pierce her heart “so that the secret thoughts of many [would] be laid bare (Lk. 2:35). I have thought about that at times of tragedy and reckoning over the last several years. It does seem that the secret thoughts of many are laid bare in the midst of tragedy, of horrific events. Mary’s heart was pierced through by her love and compassion for her Son, and really, for us too. Murder surely pierces her heart. Injustice, people doing harm to one another, these must hurt her terribly. Jesus Crucified by hate. Again and again.
I have had my PTSD triggered by the event itself; a horrible murder. A father and husband with little kids suddenly dead. I lost my first husband in a car accident when my youngest was three months old and my eldest three weeks shy of her fifth birthday. I can hardly stand to think of what Kirk’s widow is going through today and what she will go through in the days, weeks, months, years ahead of her. She will have to watch her children grieve. She will have to be there for them as her world is ending. I can’t imagine people watching video all over the world of my husband dying a gruesome death. I was surprised when the sun still rose the day after my husband died. I watched in shock as the news came on and people went to work and school and drove around as if the sky hadn’t fallen. I feel for her very much.
The secret thoughts of many have been laid bare haven’t they? I’ve been triggered by some of their reactions as well as the original event. Some people have been sanitizing the murdered man as if he had been a saint when he was a rank racist who said things every day that could get people harassed, threatened and endangered and did. His public life was all about hate. Then people I thought were sane are saying his work should be “continued,” (Gavin Newsom) or that he “did politics the right way.” (Ezra Klein).
Some have been fawning over him. Their hero is dead. Incomprehensible to me. He was horrible. Look up the things he said for yourself if you don’t believe me.
I think of St. Edith Stein’s saying that truth without love or love without truth is a destructive lie. And look. It is. Historically Black campuses have had bomb threats. The DNC had a bomb threat. Why? I guess because Kirk hated black people? Or because they assumed a black person did it? Because he hated Democrats? They assume the culprit is a Democrat? Brawls have broken out. The president wants to give the man a statue in DC and award him the presidential medal of freedom. Of course he does. He hasn’t helped with his incendiary blaming of “radical left Democrats.”
The outpouring of grief and praise for the man must be a gut punch to the people he harmed with his bullying, with his hate and his stirring up more and more hate. I know it’s a gut punch for me. My heart is the most with the vulnerable and persecuted. That’s where I think it should be. However that solidarity of mine has caused me a lot of rage over the last couple of days. A friend said, to my prayer online for peace and an end to political violence, “You’re a good person.” I replied, “Not really.” I noticed one of my kids put a laughing emoji on that. Thanks a lot Roise.
Also triggering to me is the response of people who want to skip the ugly process of truth and reckoning to get to the peace they think would come if we all decided to just get along and lay aside our differences. To me that’s fake peace. After the things I have been through I have seen enough of that. How can we love our enemies if we whitewash and sanitize what they have done? That’s fake love. It’s useless, wrong even.
I see how I have been freaking out about all this; angry, horrified, scared for our country, taking in too much of what everyone is saying and what the news is when I know that makes me so upset.
Maybe I can offer up all the wild inner agony I have had about all this to God to help someone somewhere. Mary’s piercing of the heart was co-redemptive. I can entrust my little offering of a struggling heart to her.
I pray that I’ll be able to love Kirk- who by all accounts would be an enemy of mine at least as a public figure- in the way God wants me to. Right now that seems to me to be to pray for his salvation, for a beautiful forever life with God for him. Whatever he is doing, Charlie Kirk understands more than any of us do now. He has a completely different perspective. He has encountered eternal love and life. May he embrace them, embrace him who is love and life himself with all of his heart and possess them forever. God says he will give us all new hearts instead of our stony hearts. Amen amen.
I need to ask for that for myself, too. For all of us.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”
When I used to volunteer for Hospice I would deliver flowers every week or so to an old man who had kidney cancer. He lived way out in the middle of nowhere in a small, very old wooden house with his wife, Priscilla. He was my favorite stop. We used to talk and talk. I prayed with his family, sons and daughters, cousins, brothers and sisters, in the kitchen holding hands. They prayed spontaneous vocal prayer. I was shy so I prayed Come, Holy Spirit but they were delighted and said it was wonderful.
He liked to pray for me about things that came up in my life. He would say he had “pondered” in his heart and reflected on a situation in my life and tell me what he felt he got in prayer about it. He often worried about me being a widow so young, and thought I should marry again. He prayed a “holy Christian man” would come into my life. Years later, this did happen, and I’m sure Mr. J.D. had something to do with it. I was surprised he could worry about anyone else when he was dying. But that’s how he was.
When I came in, he used to tell me how his day was in spiritual terms. He would say, “I been deep in the Lord, deep in the Lord all day today.” Another time, in his last few days, he said, “I’m sorry I just can’t talk about anything else but Jesus Christ anymore.” I said “No need to apologize. That’s what I think about all the time too. “ This was in 2002. I still remember him sometimes and smile. He’s deep in the Lord for sure
if you’re dealing with a profound loss, the after effects of tragedy or post traumatic stress you may be feeling spiritually dead. Maybe you think you’ve lost your faith or that God has left you. It may be helpful for you to know there are neurological reasons for this apparent loss of your spiritual senses.
When there is a traumatic event or a terrible loss in our lives, our brains are actually affected. Trauma can disrupt the brain’s ability to process spiritual experiences by affecting its prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal lobes. These areas are also involved in emotional regulation, memory, and our sense of self, even our feeling of connection with something greater than ourselves. Dysfunction in these regions can lead to a disconcerting loss of or distortion in a person’s spiritual life. It’s difficult for us to feel God with us, or to reach the peace we used to find in prayer and the practice of our faith.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for self-reflection and focus. It helps us in practices like contemplative prayer and meditation by supporting awareness and attention. When this part of the brain is dealing with trauma we can’t seem to relax. We may feel void of any spirituality at all. Even the sacraments we believe in feel oddly empty as if we are merely spectators. Everything may seem meaningless to us now because the brain is preoccupied with stress and survival due to its injuries from trauma.
The amygdala and hippocampus process emotions, especially fear and joy. It gives us a sense of our life stories, of our own history. Spiritual experiences often evoke intense emotions and build on a relationship with God that we have developed over time. Trauma can even shrink the hippocampus . It may be hard to remember the love we once knew with God. Without this memory of the lived experience of God’s love and mercy, it’s hard to trust the Lord or that he is still there at all.
With post traumatic stress the amygdala becomes hyperactive, keeping our brains in a state of fear and hypervigilance. We might also feel emotionally overwhelmed and dysregulated making daily life difficult let alone communion with God.
The temporal lobes of the brain are associated with mystical experiences, and our perception of religious imagery. They also help us integrate our sensory experiences in life into spiritual meaning. Sustaining trauma can cause either overactivation or underactivation of the temporal lobes. This can lead to either intense visions or else fear-based religious thoughts. On the other hand, we may feel emotionally and spiritually blank. Where is God?
“God my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:33-34
Our anterior cingulate cortex helps us feel empathy and compassion. It’s also involved in the regulation of emotions and our sense of the Divine.The damage of trauma can impair the ACC. We may feel lost, cut off emotionally from our friends. We feel empty and alienated from people and God.
“Friend and neighbor you have taken away.
My one companion is darkness.” Ps. 88:18
The insula processes sensations and emotions, contributing to a sense of the nearness of God or a feeling of transcendence during prayer or meditation.Trauma can impair the functioning of the insula leading to either low body awareness or too much of it. We can feel a strange detachment from our bodies, unaware of even our physical needs. Conversely we may be overwhelmed by physical sensations, making it hard to relax or focus when we want to pray.
The good news is that contemplative prayer and meditation have been shown to be healing and even restorative to these areas of the brain impaired by trauma. Interior prayer practices and meditation can calm the amygdala, improve prefrontal cortex regulation, and enhance the connectivity of the ACC and insula, restoring emotional balance and renewing our sense of connection.
It means a lot to me that Jesus experienced trauma and that he allowed himself to descend into the depths of the abyss of abandonment when he cried out from the cross his desolation.
St. John of the Cross taught about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a phase of the spiritual life of many Christian contemplatives and mystics, which seems to have similar effects as trauma does on our prayer life. St. John of the Cross wrote that “in the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” He teaches us that God is nearer than ever before at times we feel he is farthest away. He says to go on “naked faith” and not to give up.
I have found it true that “God is close to the broken hearted, those whose spirit is crushed he will save.” (Psalm 34:18)
So if you are grieving a tragedy, experiencing trauma or post traumatic stress, and your’re having trouble with spirituality as a result don’t blame yourself. You haven’t done anything wrong. Nor have you lost God.
We know Mary and Joseph were holy and faithful people but they still lost Jesus for three days. Maybe you feel bereft but he is still there in the temple of your heart and you will find him again just as they did.
It’s ok to pray in ways you can handle. Don’t hold yourself to what you used to do. For me emotional overwhelm kept me from deeper methods of prayer after a tragedy in my life. I talked to Jesus about it. I told him, “I still love you. I just need you not to come so close for now. Can you sit farther away but still nearby?” So he sat with me but not too close. I chose what felt to me a less personal or emotional method of prayer. I memorized psalms, set prayers or passages from the mystics I love like St. Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. When I could handle it I sat quietly and slowly went over them in my mind as a form of prayer/meditation. Other times all I could do was hold my rosary. These things slowly began to bring me peace again.
My friend Jim had said “the devil will try to kick you when you’re down and darkness tries to overwhelm you at times like this so keep doing the things that are of light: the rosary, going to mass, whatever you can do.” He said that would keep my lamp alight no matter what I was going through. He was right.
And after all:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5
Today I did something I have never done before. I took part in an “honor walk” for someone I love very much who has died- just yesterday in fact. I had never heard of an honor walk before. This is something that was done today for this person so beloved by so many. I can’t tell you who this person is to me because the family has not shared anything on line as far as I know so I won’t either.
However I thought this honor walk was pretty touching. Everyone came at such short notice and it was a lot of people!
It had to be carried out quickly due to the family’s decision to donate the organs “so he can be the answer to another family’s prayers.”
His body would be flown to Dallas for this purpose.
This death was sudden and tragic. Everyone I saw there in the ICU was still dazed from the shock of it. Hospital staff had us line the halls. Some of the people had signs with pictures of him saying “We love you.”
We seemed to stand there a long time. I didn’t know many of the others though I could guess who many of them were. I introduced myself to some I had heard the most about. I regretted that I somehow forgot my rosary. I always have one in my pocket but I didn’t remember today. I made desultory conversation with an interesting young person next to me whom I had met several times before. It was awkward or I worried it was.
I repeated “Jesus Maria” in my head as I tried not to let my emotions or my social anxiety overwhelm me.
In High School my best friend, Philip, was killed in a car accident. I remembered vividly watching his mother, Helen, go stoically through all of the necessary procedures. Afterwards I tried to stay close to her through the varying stages of her grief and mine.
A lot of feelings from my past came up standing there because I felt so terrible for the family. I remembered the last time I would ever see my first husband’s face after he had died in a car crash when he was twenty-eight. I had to ask my dad and brother to remove me so the funeral home people could close his casket because I just couldn’t leave Marc’s side. Standing and waiting today I kept thinking of the trauma, shock and horror this family must feel in these last moments with the body. I felt those feelings of horror and bottomless darkness from my past that I wish I could save them from.
I had to sort things out. I didn’t want to avoid my own grief for this person now. But I also needed to be present and remind myself that this is not my trauma. This is their trauma. This is their day, his day. I wanted to pray and to be there. I wanted to grieve this person and not my other people I’ve lost. I so wanted to strengthen the family and love them. As someone who is all full of trauma and loss myself this was hard to do.
Staff handed out water bottles and tissue. I noticed I was crying a little bit. That’s a sign of healing for me because I did not have that ability for many years. It is a recent development.
Finally the hospital bed carrying our person was pushed between the two lines of people from the other end of the hall. Everyone stood in silence. After the family had passed we followed. He was propped up on pillows. His eyes had some kind of shiny stuff on his closed eyelids. There was a ventilator tube coming out of his mouth. There was the face I loved, empty of expression now. He didn’t even look that empty when he was sleeping. He was definitely gone. Still I mentally told him I loved him knowing he could spiritually hear. I asked him to look after his family.
Finally we came to an open door leading to a kind of dock. A chaplain invited us to pray together which we all did. A hospital staff member of some kind read out some words of gratitude for what the family was about to do, and a blessing. She cried while she did it. The mother of our person spoke to him for a while some loving words. I couldn’t hear them exactly. And he was sent out.
I saw a beloved grandmother in the hall and hugged her and the weeping grandfather too.
The parents hugged me. I so wanted to be a comfort to them. I think I was. It seemed that way.
We were all guided back out to the lobby where I joined my step mom and daughter who had come with me, having known him too. I had stood with the family and close friends. My step mom had pushed me over there. I hadn’t been sure I should be so forward but it worked out.
I thought the honor walk was beautiful. It was fitting. It was just like the family, who are so loving, to do this.
I will think about it for a long time.
This is not my trauma but the family’s. However, I grieve. I do grieve terribly.
Now that the family has openly shared about Zane’s death I can too. I was his care giver since he was 16. I loved him – I do love him- very much.
Today is Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I just don’t know what I would do without Mary. Why would anyone want to live without her? Sometimes I want to tell people just to give friendship with her a shot, try it for themselves and they will see right away what she is to us. When I think of Our Lady of Perpetual help, I think of how she was and is a good Jewish Mother. When we are in trouble, she moves in, cleans up, takes over, thinks of the little things that are actually big things we need. She rubs our back, she asks us if we’ve eaten, she calls her Son with updates. She makes sure we take a nap and have a snack and a glass of water.
She says, “Tell me what else I can do. How can I help? I told Jesus not to be late he will be here in a minute. Until then, here is some soup I just made. And a sandwich. Here you need more water you cried so much. Here’s a tissue. Wipe your nose. There you go. You know how much I love you, right? We all love you and you’re going to be OK. We will make sure.”
One time I had been crying for hours. I went to adoration and there were no tissues in there. I was annoyed. They usually have some. I got home and checked the mail. I kid you NOT I opened an envelope from a religious organization and in it there was a small packet of tissues. On it there was a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I had to laugh.
Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones. (Psalm 116:15)
St. Joseph, your death was beautiful and tender. Your passing filled the room with love; your love, the love of your family, the love of God.
Joseph the dreamer, the worker, the father, the husband, the prophet, the protector, the meaning of your life settled with intense clarity on those who kept watch at your side and on everyone who ever knew you, flooding the hearts of them all. Help us when our time comes to leave this world, to have fulfilled our purpose, to have loved God and every human being he sent our way, to have lived with Jesus and Mary daily that we may also die in their arms and ultimately reach heaven in the company of the angels and saints, to be forever in the Heart of the Father, inhabiting his House filled with wonder. St. Joseph, Patron of a holy death, pray for us as we honor you. Pray for us always.
Bethany Hang Out 