Warm, soft, vulnerable and alive, this sleeping One in my lap. I caress the tiny forearm, touch the curled, unsure hands. I can’t stop kissing his fast-beating heart, listening to his unpracticed, uneven breath. I touch his soft, dark, baby hair, nuzzling the top of his head with my nose. His little feet, slightly cold- so tiny and perfect- have never yet touched the ground. I hold them in my hands to warm them. I kiss their satiny soles. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” my heart in wonder repeats, repeats. I press him to me, this Lord of mine, with a profound, peaceful, joyful gratitude and love, a protective love. He opens his eyes, still that deep slate gray of the newly arrived human. They hold the newborn’s sage, open gaze; mildly curious, seeming to drink in the powerful love pouring out of the utterly enchanted person looking back at them. He blinks innocently at the tears falling from my eyes into his.
I am cold, my arms flailing awkwardly and out of my control. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s happening. I need comfort, warmth, nourishment. And then I am warm, pressed soothingly all around. A deep, sweet peace flows into my mouth and through my body as my unruly hands tangle in her hair; Mama, Mama. The only thing I know is this love, this union, this protection and assurance. I relax completely.
I am that I am, Being, Love, Light and Life. I surround my Son, inhabit my Son, I am within my Son, I love my Son, I am my Son.
I have remained what I have been and will be eternally, and I have become what I was not. In my love of humanity, I have finally become fully human, entering the world of time and space in the most profound and humble way. So great is my love, I have been conceived and born into this human cloud of unknowing, emptying Myself, taking the form of a slave, in order to free and divinize my beloved humanity, made of dust, that they might share my Divine Life.
Vulnerable, human, innocent and unknowing, be, oh Christian soul. I have shown you the way to Me: this little Child, this Way, this Truth, this Life, full of humility and trust, gentle, humble, simple, with the need, the open-ness of the newborn. Come to Me, forgetting everything but Love Itself, and be born again. Be little, be free, be loved. Never be afraid, it is I, the Little One, asking for your love.
Answer Me, say from the heart:
Truly, I have set my soul
In silence and in peace
As the Divine Child has rest in His mother’s arms,
Traveling through Advent with grief this year has led to me to soul search about what Christmas is, and, in the process, to notice similarities between the journey of Advent into Christmas and the stages of the soul’s progression into the heart of God. According to Carmelite spirituality, the soul first travels through and away from outward distractions, into inward beauty, then into the deep pain of the dark night when even these lovely interior gifts are removed and the soul’s perception of them and consequently, of God, is radically changed. This happens so that the true nature of God can be apprehended by naked faith and purified love. In this way, the soul is prepared for union with God, and begins to radiate peace and love through His indwelling presence.
Throughout this journey, the soul finds that the things around God, even things that point to or reflect God, are not God Himself. The soul has to learn to relate to all these other things in a whole new way that has to do with loving God as He is in Himself. This is something which God will begin mysteriously to teach the willing and loving soul, who responds to God, in and through this suffering, with more and more surrender and determination. God will transform that soul, making it able to receive God in pure faith, hope and love.
In a similar way, the journey through Advent prepares us for the very real grace of Christmas, which is beyond all of the outward and even inward trappings that surround Christmas itself. We journey through all these things to the heart of Christmas, and thereby receive its true grace.
Advent is full of things that are good and point the way to Christmas, but they are not Christmas itself. I can be distracted by the outward show of the season; the lights, the gifts, the traditions, the social interactions. These outward things can be good, used to serve others and remind us of the birth of Jesus. But they are not Christmas itself.
Even the people in our lives, whom we love and enjoy, and/or who cause us a lot of stress at this time of year one way or the other; they point the way to Christmas because they are our school of love, forgiveness, mercy, sacrifice, and communion. They reflect the love of God to us. But people and relationships are not actually Christmas itself.
The events we plan with our families and friends, as good (or as stressful) as they can be, are not Christmas either.
Our feelings, memories and thoughts, so intensified (sometimes painfully, sometimes happily) during this time of the year, are part of our journey. Our expectations, our longing for unity, joy, peace, justice and beauty, are all from God and are holy. They point us to the meaning of the Nativity, and to the joys of Heaven. But even these are not Christmas itself.
Sometimes I am happy about shared love and memories with family and friends. Sometimes I am keenly aware that I am in deep mourning. Some years I have truly felt that I have known Christmas joy. Other years I did not feel it. But it is still Christmas, whatever I think or feel.
Cultural expressions of the season, social events, our relationships, and even our inmost feelings, all these things, painful or joyful as these may be, are not Christmas. These are things that surround Christmas, that reflect its light.
What is Christmas? Is it just a remembering of the birth of Jesus? I think it is that, but what else is it?
Does something actually happen at Christmas?
I think Christmas is a remembering by us, the Church, that makes present and re-presents an eternal reality. With this remembering, I believe, Heaven cooperates whole heartedly.
I believe that at Christmas, by a special grace, there is a sunrise that bathes every face, a release of extra love and light coming through the heart of the Church, Christ’s Body, that shines on everyone.
The Church prays for it: “Grant….that the the coming solemnity of [the Nativity of ] your Son may bestow healing upon us in this present life.” ~ from the Liturgy of the Hours Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
Jesus has come into the world and continues to be with us.
Christmas is true no matter what happens with events outside or inside myself, or how I perceive them.
Christmas is real, and that sunrise is there. It’s coming.
The God who brought light out of darkness has shown in our hearts.
-The God who brought light out of darkness has shown in our hearts.
To give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory that appears on the face of Christ.
-He has shown in our hearts.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.~Responsory from Morning Prayer from the Carmelite Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours, Feast of St. John of the Cross.
The invitation said “Shawna’s Day of Silence.” When we arrived, her house was open, breezy, and, obviously, quiet.
My friend had set up areas to be comfortable to think, read, journal or pray or even nap. There were candles burning, and an array of books on various tables; spiritual reading, art books, a Bible. Art supplies and paper were in the kitchen with snacks and coffee. I brought a basket of rosaries to set on the coffee table. A note encouraged us to go for a walk, or do whatever quiet activity we liked.
I remember walking in her beautiful garden, scribbling in my journal on her couch, smiling at my friends, just hanging out. People came and went as they pleased or as they had time.
Shawna was going through a hard time in her life then. It is beautiful that one of her responses to her spiritual growth during her suffering was to open her home for us as a refuge of silence and acceptance.
You would think such a gathering would feel awkward, but, especially among good friends, it was not awkward at all.
I was inspired, some years later to hold a “day of silence” at my house. I decided to punctuate mine with times of communal vocal prayer.
People could come and go, similar to Shawna’s day, but they would know that at various times we would gather to pray together.
My friend Jocie came early to my “Day of Silence,” and made memorable breakfast tacos for everyone.
I set up an environment similar to the one Shawna had.
We then gathered for Morning Prayer form the Liturgy of the Hours in the room in my house we had set aside as our family oratory. (I called it my chapel but I know that is not actually correct terminology.)
Then everyone could do whatever they liked.
We had a tree house rosary at noon, Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3, and Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours on the trampoline at 6.
It was a great day. One of my fond memories of that day was wandering into the “chapel” and seeing my friend Molly in there with a bucket of soapy warm water and a towel. She asked me to sit down and she washed my feet!
It was very touching.
* (You may ask where my kids were that day or how did I got them to be quiet all that time. Answer: My kids were there some, but mostly at a friend’s house that day- otherwise it would never have been a day of silence!)
I have hosted days of silence and reflection on other occasions, but they have been shorter. They were more like a come and go open house with communal prayer at the beginning and the end for a few hours, and food and coffee and tea, of course.
I have also tried a “day of silence” with my fiancee. In our schedule we made, we set times for walking, reading, quiet prayer togetherandjust open quiet time. We broke silence for meals and for going out for coffee.
At three o’clock, we washed one another’s feet, and anointed one another with oil.
The day was the first anniversary of my brother’s suicide which had unfortunately marked most of the duration of our relationship with trauma and the various crises that emanated from that event. It was important that we have a healing day.
When we washed one another’s feet, we also told each other how grateful we were for each other’s strength and wisdom, faith and resilience, acceptance and presence.
In the evening, we prayed Evening Prayer together from the Liturgy of the Hours, and went out for a special meal.
Consider hosting a Day of Reflection or a Day of Silence at your own home, your Domestic Church. There are so many ways to serve others without a lot of “doing.” You can be open and accepting to others, your house like the open heart of Jesus.
You don’t have to make small talk or worry about how you are doing. Just be like Joseph and Mary when they opened the stable at Bethlehem for the Shepherds, for the wise men, for whoever wanted to come to be with Jesus and with them under the light of the Star.
We all have so many Christmas parties we go to. We have shopping and cooking, baking and decorating, travel and other plans.
Take a moment. Let the fresh air of the Spirit come into your house, the sweetness of silence with Jesus permeate your home and your friendships.
You could have different kind of Christmas party, one that cultivates peace and gives refuge to your friends in the middle of all their intensified seasonal activity and holiday stress.
Put on the coffee pot. Light the candles on your Advent wreath. Set out some good food, some spiritual reading, maybe some art supplies.
Then open up your home and your heart.
The fruit of silence is prayer… The fruit of prayer is love The fruit of love is service The fruit of service is peace ~ St.Teresa of Calcutta
My late husband, Bob Chapman, had a strong sense of community. He was deeply aware that everything he did or did not do affected everyone else’s life, that we all have an effect on one another, all the time, in all we touch and do. He called this his “skin religion,” and he tried to live it to the full.
He cultivated a constant awareness of others, and had a knack for seeing how each might be helped, and then doing it. He noticed people’s needs and contributions every day.
He always encouraged someone he saw working hard, or doing something good. He pitched in an act of kindness everywhere he could.
The sign shaker guy on the corner was cold and needed a hot chocolate. Bob bought one and had me take it out to the man.
A girl at a small town grocery store was putting back all…
I wanted Santa to be real to my daughters forever, not only when they were small, but always. I accomplished this by teaching them about the original Santa Klaus, St. Nicholas, Friend of Children and of the Poor, Master of Sneaky Good Deeds.
As a Saint he is forever accessible to us who believe. Very useful in this Santa catechesis was the little movie, Nicholas, the Boy Who Became Santa.* My girls loved it and they watched it over and over and so did the neighborhood kids who were always at our house. The movie shows the boy Nicholas giving away his things to the poor, buying slaves their freedom, sneaking food and gifts to children and the poor in the middle of the night, always remaining anonymous.
St. Nicholas, who had an intense devotion to the Christ Child and a special love for children, became a bishop in what is now Turkey. He was persecuted by the Romans who burned down his church and arrested him. He spent years in prison, even sharing his bread and water with his fellow prisoners who weren’t particularly nice to him. Eventually he was set free and was able to re-join his fellow Christians.
I incorporated devotion to St. Nicholas into our family celebration of Advent and Christmas, having the girls write him a letter on his feast day, Dec. 6 ( a letter in return for which, he always left some simple treats, some change,and possibly some glitter.) They would write to St. Nicholas about what they wanted him to pray for them about in their lives. I always had them include three virtues they wanted him to obtain from God for them. (This is where The Family Virtues Guide came in handy.)** Some of these letters the girls wrote were very beautiful and of course some were hilarious!
Shawn and Kids 12/00
During the course of Advent and the Christmas season, we would attempt to imitate St. Nicholas by doing sneaky good deeds as much as we could. One year I remember we put a bunch of Christmas roses in our red wagon and stayed up late, going out to leave roses and glitter or some toys for the kids at each house on our street. As people did in honor of St. Nicholas after his death, we sometimes left a note that said, “St. Nicholas.” As you can imagine, this was great fun.
Of particularly fond memory is a Christmas we drove around to houses
where people struggled with poverty. I remember how we silently giggled as we sprinkled glitter all over porches, leaving presents and food and red rose petals. We laughed about it on the way home in the car.
The girls understood that in this way we were being helpers of St. Nicholas just like anybody is when they give sneaky gifts in honor of Jesus’ birthday the way St. Nicholas did. So my kids transitioned slowly to understanding that the adults in their family did this same thing for them each Christmas… as helpers of St. Nicholas who loved the Christ child, loved children and the poor. So that’s how it all worked! However he stayed real to them as a Saint and a friend. The legend could grow up with the kids.
This was a very good way to learn what Christmas gifts are about, and who Santa really is. Sometimes there were challenges, however.
One Christmas morning, my wide eyed little girls ran in the back door yelling, “MAMA! St. Nicolas SMOKES! And he DRINKS, TOO!”
My dad and brother had been over in the middle of the night, helping St. Nicholas with a trampoline in the back yard for the girls. Apparently they had left cigarette butts and a few beer bottles around as well.
Looking at my daughters, I tried not to laugh. No laughing. I had to think.
I thought of several possible answers in the midst of their shocked clamor.
It was the helpers? Should I bring elves into this? It’s Christmas, give Santa a break? It was Uncle Mark and Grandaddy? (No, not that, not yet.)
I looked down at their horrified little faces and shrugged.
“Well! Now we know what to leave St. Nicholas on Christmas Eve from now on instead of the hot coco and cookies. Next time we will leave him cigarettes and a beer!”
“When Black Friday comes, I’m gonna dig myself a hole, I’m gonna lay down in it ‘till I satisfy my soul.”
-Steely Dan
The Advent Season is at the same time as the Shopping Season. I wish it wasn’t so. I wish, when December comes, that I could spend my Advent and Christmas as a hermit instead.
I would probably miss my brother though.
I told Jesus how much this time of year stresses me out.
There is so much to do and the whole soundtrack of Advent is Christmas music when it isn’t Christmas. They play and play those Christmas songs everywhere you go, and by the time Christmas comes I don’t even want to hear Joy to the World ever again.
I hate shopping, even on line.
I am prone to mall nausea.
Jesus listened in silence. He is good at that.
He has been helping me pack, since I am in the middle of moving.
“Can’t we just trick all the stores by moving Christmas to some other time?”
He sat back on his heels, smiling at me. “Let’s go shopping.”
“What, right now?”
But he was already putting on his shoes. Which means I had to put on mine, too.
He wanted to go to Wal-mart. I hate that place. But I drove him there.
There was a lot of traffic, and some people were not driving in their right minds. I growled at them, but I said, “God bless you, have a nice day,” because what else can you say with that guy around?
When we arrived, he wanted to sit in the parking lot and hold my hand for a while.
So we held hands sitting in the car. I looked at him sometimes, and sometimes I watched the people going by. So many of them were smiling, though many seemed pre-occupied. People handed each other carts, stepped aside for the elderly, grinned conspiratorially at the children, many of whom were skipping or jumping up and down. Parents looked at each other over their children’s heads and laughed.
I thought about how even in the midst of the over commercialization of the season, it is true that people seem to treat each other with a little more kindness. Maybe there is something to the magic of the season after all. It’s Jesus coming out in people at his special time of year.
Jesus said his mom always took him shopping when she went, that he loved going with her.
I thought about that.
We always think of Mary’s pregnancy during Advent. She was filled with Jesus. She took him everywhere. From what Elizabeth said at the Visitation, his presence could be felt in her. I imagined Mary, very big and pregnant, doing the shopping, smiling, knowing.
Jesus squeezed my hand. “Let’s go.”
At the front doors, he made sure I donated to the Salvation Army, and reminded me to thank the bell ringer for being out there.
He drew me into conversation with some little boys who were raising money for their team, prompting me to ask questions that seemed to please them.
We walked through the tinseled Wal-Mart, noticing people and blessing them. He pointed out to me the ones who were tired or worried or sad, and had me pray for them. He showed me examples of people being kind to one another across the usual social boundaries we rarely think about and seldom disregard. I began to kind of almost like Wal-mart.
I bought some dog food and we silently blessed all the people in the check out line; especially the young mother with the crying baby and fussy toddler, the cashier who looked as if she had worked a double, and the old man who counted his change out so slowly and then did it again.
Yep, there was that Christmas music. He smiled, I noticed. He said he likes Christmas music all the time.
It was crowded in the mall and I was almost instantly over stimulated. He patted me on the back.
He thought I should try smiling from the heart at everyone I saw.
This simple exercise had an amazing curative effect on my nerves.
I started seeing possible gifts my daughters might like a lot. I even started to feel a little excited. I walked a little faster. I thought how easy to please both my daughters are, and how much I love them.
As we made our way through the mall, Jesus reminded me to say a kind word to everyone I interacted with, even to go out of my way to compliment people. I was surprised how much this little effort brightened people’s faces, and mine, too.
He wanted to go into a store that looked really glitzy to me. I dislike places like that. They make me feel ridiculous.
Sure enough when we stepped across the threshold, I noticed the hole in the toe of my shoe, became conscious of the eccentric bent and general sloppiness of my clothes, the fact that I have not worn make up in years.
Looking at all those expensive beauty products on mirrored surfaces, all those swanky clothes, the fashion show music, the fast pace, being surrounded by the fashionable and well dressed, made me unusually self conscious. Then I was annoyed at myself for caring.
Jesus pinched me. Because in my self absorption, I had not noticed a teenaged girl whose bag had come open on the bottom. Her items fell and rolled across the slick, polished aisle and under clothes racks, scattering hopelessly. People stepped over her things, or avoided her or stared at her, but nobody was helping her and she was embarrassed, as teens tend to be.
I helped her find everything, even getting on my hands and knees and crawling under hanging coats, smiling because it reminded me of hiding from my mom in stores as a kid.
All her things restored to her, and a new bag procured, the embarrassed teen was on her way, hopefully feeling a little better, and thinking of what was for dinner.
On our way out, Jesus and I passed one of those triple mirrors that help you see your new outfit from every angle. As I walked by, I saw an unexpected flash of color and retraced my last two steps. I saw myself in a golden dress with bracelets on my arms, rings on my fingers, and gold sandals on my feet, a small crown on my head. I laughed as the vision faded, and the voice in my ear said, “This is how you look, to ME.” I closed my eyes in sheer joy.
When I opened my eyes, he had slipped away. He must have gone to help someone else so I got into the car alone, knowing he had his own ride home.
At a very busy intersection I saw him standing on a corner holding one of those signs saying that he was hungry, and would someone please help.
I hate when he stands on a corner where I can’t get to him unless I go to the next exit and turn around and almost get in a wreck trying to help him. But I did it anyway. I even gave him a hug along with the money. He patted me and said, “God bless you.”
Back in my car, I turned on the radio. Matt Maher was singing “Alive Again” and it made me cry a little bit.
“You called and You shouted Broke through my deafness Now I’m breathing in and breathing out I’m alive again
You shattered my darkness Washed away my blindness Now I’m breathing in and breathing out I’m alive again”
I understand. The spirit of Advent, Lord, is in listening to you, noticing you, and spending time with you in the ways you lead me to, loving in all the ways the world around me offers… even in shopping and going to Wal-Mart and the mall.
November is the month the praying Church dedicates to remembrance of the dead. As one whose life has been especially marked by death and grief, my prayer with and for the dead is an important part of my spiritual life. However, my devotion tends more toward relationship than specific set prayers for them, though I pray those too at times.
I had not thought of it until I set out to write this post, but there are many things I do that weave my sense of loving relationship with the dead into my every day.
Some of them are, the way I pray Evening Prayer in the cemetery when I get a chance,
the way my daughters and I make the sign of the cross when we drive over the bridge where my first husband’s fatal accident happened,
the way I wear my wedding ring still (on my right hand now,)
the way I always make enough coffee for two even though I am alone (it’s for my husbands.)
I love telling stories about my granny, and sharing my mom’s pithy wisdom with people.
I have a habit of lightly touching certain family pictures on my way up the stairs.
I often whisper the names of my beloved dead at mass.
I light candles for them in church or at home.
Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com on Pexels.com
I make their favorite foods on their birthdays and my family does special things on the anniversaries of their deaths.
I often play their favorite music and go places they loved in memory of them on special days.
In honor of my mom, I re-read books we loved to read aloud together. My mom is part of every good meal I cook, every rose I appreciate, every fragrant bunch of herbs I gather.
I ask their advice about things they were good at, and it seems the right thought or answer usually comes to me. When I ask one of them to help me about something, it seems to me that they do.
I invite people I love who have died to pray the rosary with me, and I often ask one or more of them to join me in a novena I am praying, especially if it is to a saint they loved, or for a cause or person they especially cared about.
My mom loved the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I always invite her to pray it with me.
I never leave the cemetery without praying a Hail Mary with and for each of my husbands. I tell them I love them. I say, “Be blessed, and pray for us.” If my daughters are with me, they do this, too.
When I pray with my husbands in mind, I always pray for their intentions. I know those guys so well, and I know they are not just sitting around doing nothing. I know they are busy doing good for us who still struggle on earth. Like everyone else there, I think they have heavenly ministries.
My youngest daughter likes to take her guitar to the cemetery and sing for her dads. I like imagining how much they both must love her doing that.
Acts of love and service in honor of the dead are a beautiful prayer. That is one way we honor my second husband, Bob, that is particularly appropriate given the way he lived his life. We try to do acts service in his honor all day on his birthday.
I am sure there are many things like this that you also do, Reader, to honor your dead, and to continue the relationship with them on a spiritual level.
I talk to my husbands and my mom all the time. I know other people have told me they do things like this. This, too, is prayer. We are in communication with Heaven.
Often, as people get to know my family, they remark on how we talk about my husbands as if they were still alive. Well, they are. They are part of us. And if the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, then all our beloved dead are within us, too, alive, right here.
As my second husband, Bob, wrote,referring to my first husband, Marc Blaze, “His picture will always hang on our wall, his name will be mentioned around our table, and his ring will always be on her finger.”
There are stories in my family, and among our friends, of times we felt that my granny, Marc Blaze, Bob, my mom, or my brother, responded in some way to us or made their presence known in some small way that someone who loved them would not miss. I have heard a lot of stories like that from other families, too; simple stories and a few really wild ones that make you wonder how anyone could give any credence to the theory that earthly life is all there is. These are experiences of the Communion of Saints.
Heaven seems to be near, very near us. Maybe we just have to pay attention to notice when it speaks to us. That paying attention is prayer, too.
I have heard a lot of people talk about meaningful dreams they have had that were deeply impressed on their hearts; dreams that were like visits from those they loved who have died. I have these dreams too sometimes.
In one numinous dream, I was running up beautiful stairs that led into the night sky. I was surrounded by stars, my heart filled with joy. I was reciting the Divine Praises as I ran up and up the steps. My second husband, Bob, was standing on a landing above me holding a cup of coffee, smiling radiantly. It was a very vivid, healing dream. Dreams that come from God are a form of receptive prayer, I think.
A few days before the car accident that killed my first husband, Marc Blaze, he wanted us to say our wedding vows to each other then and there. So we knelt where we stood, and repeated our vows to one another before God.
Then he said, “Shawn, if anything happens to me, if God lets me, I’ll be with you.” He squeezed my hands, saying, “But no matter what, we’ll always be together in the Eucharist.”
That’s it, isn’t it? The Church on Earth, the Church in Purgatory, The Church in Heaven; we are all together in the Eucharist, in the Communion of Saints, in the Heart of God, in our prayer for and with each other. Because of God’s mercy, because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, love is stronger than death. The living and the dead love one another, honor one another, help one another.
I ran across this prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.
May the dead rest in eternal peace, — may their union with us be strengthened through the sharing of spiritual goods. Bless your people, Lord.
Maybe we don’t usually think about strengthening our union with the dead, or sharing spiritual goods. But these are the words of the Church. This is what we do. And God blesses us.
Do not forget that I am your sister and I will never cease praying for you. ~St. Therese
We will never cease praying for our beloved dead, because we will never stop loving them. They will never stop praying for and loving us either.
Love is the only thing we can take with us when we die. Our dead left this world with our love, and they still have it. We still have theirs. Love is alive, because God is alive and God is love. Love is not static, because God isn’t. Jesus said that God was not a God of the dead but of the living, so when we say he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we affirm that though these men died, they are alive in God.
Silent love flows between us at all times, on both sides of life and death. The more we are aware of and cultivate this love, the more it is prayer.
When we perform some act of love and remembrance, we are praying. When we talk to someone who is living in the spiritual world that includes Purgatory and Heaven, we are praying. We can pray for them, we can ask their prayers, we can talk to them and hang out with them. We are one with them.
Now and then God does something out of the ordinary to remind us of these truths.
At a daily mass a couple of years after the death of my first husband, I was about to receive Holy Communion from Fr. David at St. Mary’s, with my very small youngest child on my hip.
Fr. David said, “Body of Christ.”
I said, “Amen.”
My little daughter said, “Hi Daddy!”
We will be,we are, always together in the Eucharist. All of us.
Father, in the eucharistic sacrifice you unite us more fully
with those who now live in your kingdom…
~from the Prayers of Intercession from the Liturgy of the Hours
I remember noticing my first cemetery as a very young child and asking my mother what it was. I couldn’t believe they buried people. I was horrified. I felt so sorry for them. My mom said to stop crying, that the dead people in the graves didn’t care and didn’t even know they were dead probably. She said to be glad they didn’t have to suffer anymore. I was not convinced. For one thing I was sure they were lonely and cold under there. How could they not notice being lonely and cold and dead? How could anyone just walk by without thinking about that or trying to help?
Later on, as we all do, I experienced some people I loved being buried. After that cemeteries seemed even more like horrible places one should avoid even thinking about, let alone visiting.
In my mid teens I developed a fascination for cemeteries. They were places where I wasn’t supposed to be, that had strict rules of etiquette it seemed fun to break, and were therefore irresistible to me. I remember running around with a group of other punks in Austin all day once, and we went to an old cemetery in the evening and had a picnic there.
At dusk we were all awed at the fireflies that came out. By then I agreed with my mom on the surface: the dead were just dead and didn’t know anything. But underneath was still my childhood suspicion that those people under there were sad and cold. The sight of glowing fireflies flitting around the head stones brought up some unaccustomed thoughts for a decidedly atheist 15 year-old to think. I wondered if the lightening bugs represented the spirits of the dead somehow. They certainly looked pretty, a cloud of fairy lights that moved between us and made us all happy and uncomfortable at the same time. It was wondrous.
Eventually I shook my head and didn’t think about it anymore for a long time.
When I met my beloved first husband, Blaze, he was a freshman in the Corps of Cadets at A & M, and, oh dear, a “Roman Catholic.” That’s what he said. “RomanCatholic”. I almost decided not to go out with him after I heard that. A Catholic Corps guy, he was undoubtedly my idealogical opposite.
I respected him for his courage, though, in asking out a girl like me. By then I looked kind of post-punk-neo-beatnick. You would have thought that would be repellent to a “CT” or at least make him sure he would be turned down. I figured I was safe; he would hate me, I would hate him, and everything would be OK. Right? So I said yes.
He wanted to take me to lunch. I said, “Why don’t we make it a picnic…in a cemetery?” I was sure this would freak him out but he shocked me by getting all excited. Did we have “an old cemetery here? A cool, Catholic one with statues and stuff?”
Uh-oh.
I admitted that we did. We figured out who would bring what, and set the date. Wednesday afternoon October 21, 1987.
Being at that old cemetery with him made me see it through his eyes a little.
It was a holy place. He didn’t think it ghoulish or rebellious to have lunch there and to take pictures of the prettiest head stones and of the serenely prayerful faces of the statues. He took a picture of me, too, smiling on the picnic blanket with a crypt behind me.
He explained that the bodies of the dead were to be held in reverence, that the dead prayed for us, that we could pray with and for them, and that cemeteries should remind us of Easter and the life to come.
I thought he was really weird. But I liked listening to him.
We didn’t hate each other. We started dating.
And that Catholic cemetery became a place we went to walk and sit and talk. The sacred surroundings and the quiet provoked discussions about things I had never thought about–things like eternity and Jesus and Mary and what Heaven might be like. He sometimes brought his guitar and I sang with him, or I would bring a bottle of bubbles and enjoy blowing bubbles while we discussed these new topics.
I’m sorry, Catholic Reader, but I used to wear a rosary around my neck sometimes. I knew it offended some people for me to wear it, (they told me so) but I didn’t really care. Sorry about that. (I guess you got me back, didn’t you? I ended up Catholic!) One day, at the cemetery, Blaze asked me in his nonthreatening, gentle way, if I’d like to learn “what you really do with one of those things.” I surprised myself by very much wanting to learn what one really did with a rosary. There and then he taught me my first “Hail Mary.” I never leave that cemetery without praying one with him.
Blaze is buried there now and so is my adored second husband, Bob. I will be buried between them. We’ll be like a little human trinity.
It still feels terribly wrong to us to bury a human being in the ground, and it is. As Christians we know death and burial are a result of a fallen world, and that at the right time God will put an end to that nonsense. We know that death is already conquered by the Passion and Sacrifice of Christ. We look forward to this, “to the life of the world to come”. We believe our bodies will be part of this new world. Our bodies will be resurrected, and glorified as the body of Jesus was, because of His spirit living in us.
Jesus showed us how real the glorified body is by letting His Sacred Wounds be touched, and by eating with His Disciples after He rose from the dead. Through His actions He reassured His friends, as if to say, “See? I’m not a ghost. I’m real, a physical presence. It’s Me. All of Me.“ We will follow Him in this, our bodies and souls reunited. And we will be able to touch and hug the people we have missed for so long.
As Catholics we believe that our bodies are part of who we are. Though the body is seen by some religions as a kind of clothing the soul leaves behind, we don’t see it like that. This, I think, is why we are a little weird about relics of Saints. Come on! You know we are weird about that stuff. St. Catherine of Sienna’s head is in a box with a light in it so you can look at it. There is a bone chip of St. Thomas Aquinas at my church. St. Bernadette is incorrupt in France and lies in a glass casket like Snow White. It does seem a little odd.
But it makes sense. These were holy people. And their bodies are holy too. And when we die we will know Our Prince is coming to wake us up and carry us off to His Kingdom. Cemeteries are holy places. They are places to be prayerful.
When I and my daughters visit my mother and grandmother’s graves we usually pray the rosary and ask them to join us. We tend the graves and make sure the head stones are clean. We talk to them. These times are very meaningful for us and I am grateful that our faith gives us so many more possibilities for a visit to a grave besides “paying our respects.”
A grave is a place of meeting, a place of prayer. Our visit to a grave is a pilgrimage to honor our love and sorrow, our memory, our hope, and the life of the one buried there–a life which is not ended but changed. We are affirming our faith when we spend time there in that way.
Cemeteries are sacred, because the human body, the human person is sacred. Cemeteries are sacred because God treasures our tears. Every head stone we see there represents so many tears, our tears that in Heaven will be jewels on our garments.
I never walk into a silent, still grave yard that I am not conscious of the faith, hope and love it represents and the shoreline of Heaven that it is.
I am thinking of inscribing something new at my husband’s graves. It will say, “Pray with us.”
*Author’s note: Be sure to read the signs and follow the rules of any cemetery respectfully. Sometimes this is hard. At our cemetery there is a big sign with a list of so many things one is not allowed to do, it is comical. But God loves obedience and other grieving people appreciate not being intruded upon or scandalized. I try to always quit blowing bubbles when anybody shows up at the cemetery–even if I think our beloved dead probably like the bubbles a lot. Why wouldn’t they?
The beautiful Luminous Mysteries of the rosary are generally prayed on Thursdays. They are a meditation on the ministry and teaching years of the life of Jesus. They begin with His baptism, and take us on to the Miracle at the wedding at Cana, The Proclaimation of the Kingdom of God, The Transfiguration of the Lord, and finally, to the Last Supper.
God bless your prayer with Mary as you meditate on the Mysteries of Light and offer these bright yellow roses of prayer to Mary as she leads you to contemplate her Son.
Opening Prayers for the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary
“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Help us to “contemplate the face of Christ” with Mary,
treasuring and pondering these mysteries in our hearts.
Allow us to accompany you, O Sacred Virgin.
Let us “learn Christ” from you in your “school of prayer,” the rosary. *
Receive from us these “bright yellow roses”** of prayer,
this garland of the Luminous Mysteries
as we ponder this “compendium of the Gospel.” *
Help us to pray it from the heart.
Through our prayers, and our meditation,
on the life of Christ,
may we scatter the petals of the Gospel
along the path of every person on earth,
to lead each one
in the way of Jesus.
Here begin the rosary in the usual way, using these brief reflections at the start of each of the Luminous mysteries, praying the dedication to Mary at the end of each decade.
First Luminous Mystery: The Baptism of the Lord
Jesus, as St. Elizabeth affirmed your mother’s purpose and ministry at the time of the Visitation, now John witnesses to Your truth in the presence
of the Holy Spirit,
coming down from Heaven,
and the Father speaks
to show us
Jesus.
We marvel at this profoundly humble encounter,
this kindly revelation
of who You are.
With your baptism, Lord, you dedicated yourself to your mission and to the Father.
We dedicate and consecrate our lives to the Father in union with You. In deep humility, as we pray…
1 Our Father, 10 Hail Mary, 1 Glory be, O my Jesus…
We place these bright yellow roses of the Baptism of the Lord, into your hands,
** In the book, Rosary Novenas to Our Lady,the authors, Charles V Lacey and John R Brokhoff refer to the Hail Marys of the Luminous Mysteries as “bright yellow roses.”
Bethany Hang Out 