Light, Hope, Love

     I've celebrated, so far, over half a century's worth of Christmases. All have been spent in the loving and boisterous bosom of my family; all have featured torn gift wrapping strewn about the living room, good food that took hours to prepare and minutes to consume, laughter, hugs, and general good will. There were many Christmases long ago when the whole family climbed into our huge Chevy station wagon in our coats and Christmas finery, to drive to the Main Chapel on post for Midnight Mass. The colored lights cheered our way and the very air smelled of something joyful and comforting.

     There have also been Christmases that, on one level at least, were not so joyful. There was the Christmas of 1995, when I was going through the deepest depression of my life. Not yet returned to the sacraments at that time, I nevertheless experienced an inexplicable but undeniable solace when I walked into the church with my parents for Vigil Mass. Perhaps that was the beginning of my religious reversion.

     There have been three Christmases dimmed by the shadow of death: just days before Christmas 1977, my sister died, shot at point-blank range by her so-called boyfriend. The month before Christmas 2011, my father died, a peaceful early morning passing after years of physical and, I'm certain, mental suffering. And this year in Connecticut, twenty-six souls were taken from this earth in one mindless, brutal act.

     Through them all, there has been light. There has been hope. There has been love. These are things given by a merciful God to sustain and strengthen us, and can never be taken away.

 



A Different Kind of Grief

      When I was in college, I stopped going to Mass and turned away from my faith. I played hooky and flunked most of my classes. I embarked on a series of, shall we say, "inappropriate" relationships. I suddenly couldn't write poetry anymore. Twenty-eight years later, my therapist put me under hypnosis one afternoon and asked me to complete this sentence: When Alice died ___ . In a later session, she told me what I had said: I died too.   

      I lost my older sister Alice to an unexpected, violent death when I was eighteen years old, and I never connected her death—or rather, the repression of my grief over her death—to the downward spiral my life took shortly after. It could very well be that everyone around me saw the connection, but I was so deep in denial, it took twenty-eight years and a hypnotherapist to open my eyes. With hindsight, of course, it all seems very logical. Textbook, you might say.

     In the meantime, I had returned to the Church and followed a call to religious life, as my readers already know; after nearly two and a half years in the monastery I returned to my parents' house and have since then devoted my life to helping my mother care for my infirm father. In the subsequent years, I watched his steady physical decline, thinking almost daily of the time he would leave us for that better world which is our true home, and praying that my recovered faith would stave off a repeat occurence of long ago, when Alice died and my repressed grief caused me to turn away from God. More than losing my father, the thought of once again losing my faith, perhaps forever, terrified me. Death, after all, is inevitable—but being deprived of Heaven is a consequence of one's own will and free choice.

     Did I actually choose, all those years ago? Was it a conscious choice? Obviously not, since it took me twenty-eight years to realize what happened. But that's precisely why I was so terrified about my father's imminent passing. Would my faith now prove stronger than my subconscious?

     Only one thing can stay the soul in the midst of all that fear: prayer. That wordless kind of prayer when you place yourself like a trusting child in God's loving arms.

     When my father did enter eternal life last week, I felt no sadness for him. I was and am sad for my mother, but not for him. He's home at last. My heart and mind—and my subconscious—are certain of that. I couldn't grieve for Alice when I was eighteen, and I can't grieve for my father now—but thank God in heaven, the reasons are completely different.

A Heavenly Ring and a Holy Death

     2 December 2004   Today is my "make-up" Moses Day, since I had to forego it on the 25th. I began the day by taking a walk in the woods after breakfast. The air was still, bright, and wonderfully crisp from last night's freeze, and I bundled up in my faithful white-speckled black overcoat that I brought with me from Houston, pulled gloves on my hands and a wool scarf over my veil, and went out to immerse myself in the dazzling rays that sliced through pine branches steaming with the evaporating damp. The woods were positively smoldering with cold! I couldn't make out the footpath, the blanket of needles covering it was so thick. But the men have begun to clear it -- I like it better uncleared; it makes it easier to walk on. Those stones are murder on my feet.
     3 December 2004   In the mini-series Anne of Avonlea, Anne says to Catherine Brooke, "Isn't that ring around the moon enchanting?" Never having seen a ring around the moon, I had no idea what she meant, exactly, but I assumed she was referring to a ring of clouds -- I imagined the clouds to be a rather close halo resembling the outer edges of a fried egg, ringing the "yolk" of the moon.
     Well, this morning as I walked out of the novitiate at 5.30, I looked up to find the moon, as is my custom, and lo and behold, there was a ring around it! Not a little "fried egg" halo, but an enormous, sky-wide, perfect, milk-white, filmy but crystalline circle, and the half-moon with a surrounding sprinkle of stars sat exactly in the center. I was so amazed at this, my first sighting of this phenomenon, that I stood there transfixed, my head thrown back in complete discomfort, as the moon was directly above; but I couldn't bear to tear my eyes away.

(The one I saw had a half moon, but I could only find photos with a full moon.)

 

     26 December 2004   Our beloved and revered Sr. Mary William of the Mother of God went home to her Bridegroom last Wednesday morning at 11.30. She took a final turn for the worse early Tuesday morning, and the community was summoned from Office. Sister was still awake and lucid, but it was clear she was failing. We stayed with her for some time; Father came to anoint her. Then before Mass an hour later, I went back to see her again -- there were still with her the Prioress and Sub-Prioress, and a few others. Sister saw me and said weakly, "Oh, look -- here's Leticia." I went to her and struggled to understand what she was trying to tell me, but couldn't quite. Sr. Maria Cabrini said, "She's saying, 'You're in the right place'." So I answered, squeezing Sr. Mary William's hand, "If you say so, then I must be."

     Those were her last words to me. When I saw her next, before Midday Prayer, she was unconscious and breathing with great difficulty.

     That night, her last on earth, I will never forget. There were perhaps 10 of us that stayed with her after Compline, praying, watching, listening to her struggle for breath while she burned with fever. At around 11, Sr. Maria Cabrini had to go back to the novitiate; she simply couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, and also she, like so many of us, was suffering from a cold. Since we are not allowed to go from building to building alone at that hour of the night, I volunteered to take her back to the novitiate; but I realized, too late, that I would have to stay there, because there was no one to walk me back to the infirmary. So I went to bed, still half-dressed, ready to pull on my skirt and veil if Sister should die in the night. But morning came, and she was still with us.

     28 December 2004   When I went to her room before Mass (or was it Midmorning Prayer?) she was conscious again and could understand people, but couldn't speak. When I greeted her, I saw her face change slightly, and Sr. Mary Jeremiah, who was tending her, said to me, "She's trying to smile at you." I could only stay a moment, as the bell had already rung.

     I went to see her again before Midday Prayer. The bell had just rung, and as I approached the infirmary, I heard the running feet of Sr. Mary Jeremiah, who was also heading to the infirmary from the opposite direction. She saw me and shouted, "Watch out behind you!" as she dashed through the infirmary door. I then heard a great clanging cow bell, and turned to see Sr. Mary Christine, one of the infirmary sisters, running and ringing the bell, announcing the death of Sr. Mary William. I hurried to her room, 10 seconds too late, for when I got there, I saw the white shadow of death on the beloved face. The other sisters rushed in and crowded round the bed. As I stood there at the foot, I felt someone's head fall against my thigh, and I looked down to see Sr. Mary Gabriel kneeling beside me, crying. I put my hand on her shoulder as we all sang the Salve Regina. I cried, too, but I was happy that Sister was well at last, and was with Jesus and his Mother and all the angels. She was free. It was the selfish part of me, the part that wanted her here in body as well as spirit, that wept. I was weeping for me.