By Fr. Victor Feltes
When Sara was first diagnosed with breast cancer, her two boys (Mick and Jake) were just twelve and seven years old. She thought of how hard it could be for them to have to grow up as children without her. She did not know how much time she had left, but one of her goals was to be around for them, to raise them throughout their high school years. Today, thirteen years later, her sons are twenty and twenty-five years old. She successfully brought them both to adulthood.
Her family tells me Sara has worked at fifteen different places over the course of her career, and even with cancer, she never stopped working. They say she went “above and beyond” at work and would never take time-off for herself, but she would take days away from work to care for her family; for instance, keeping vigil with Mick in the hospital. Sara also kept on working for another reason: to preserve her continued health insurance coverage. You can imagine how much out-of-pocket cancer treatments would have cost. Sara did not wish to burden her beloved husband, John, and their household with terrible medical debts.
To echo the words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans, only with difficulty does a person give their life for others, though a good person might have the courage to lay down their life for those they love. St. Paul speaks of how “God proves his love for us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” When we witness someone, despite their flaws, give their life not just once but year after year for those they love, it is that much easier to believe that our perfect, holy, loving Lord has lived, and died, and risen for us.
Recall Christ’s words from the Book of Revelation: “Behold, I make all things new.” Our Lord, to whom Sara prayed every day, dwells within his faithful Christians, re-presenting his mysteries in their lives. “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God.”
Jesus prays in St. John’s Gospel, “Father, those whom you gave me are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me.” Christ’s longing within us makes the psalmist’s words resonate with us: “There is one thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.”
Christ who has called us, who dwells in us, who re-presents his mysteries in our lives, who inspires eternal longings within us, desires us to be with him forever where “he will wipe every tear from [our] eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order [will have] passed away.” This is our cause for our firm and happy hope, for Sara and for every Christian.
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November 19, 2022 at 7:12 pm |
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord…