Mentors, Heaven, Hospital, and Home

Many moons ago, Father DeLeon was a teacher of mine at Cardinal Mooney High School in Rochester, NY (then Brother DeLeon). Through the positive's of social media, in recent years I've been able to follow him on Facebook. He has two types of posts, his sermons entitled WORDS FOR THE WEEKEND and shorter inspirations entitled SERMONS ON A STICK. As an example, a sermon recently was the following:

“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.” (Rumi)

 

Peony, a perennial that with proper care, returns year after year in my garden to bloom again.

Instead of working with teenagers, Father now is a hospital chaplain in the Albany area of  New York State. Today's post particularly struck me as it looks at the line between now and later, and the discoveries on the way. 

Regardless of one's belief systems, I wanted to share it here with you because as I said in a comment: As I walk besides my husband on his journey with cancer, we have also discovered your truth "...I regularly experience vibrant life—honest, pure, simple." Jim likes to say, "the loveliest people I've never wanted to meet." In this I have experienced a sort of 'resurrection' with the lines between now and next less defined. It feels as if when one has robust health, able to live according to the culturally prescribed plan: work, family, mortgage, hamburgers on the grill, wine cooling, vacations, retirement, etc., a diagnosis and the thought of living with a fatal or chronic disease is unimaginable and life-stopping. However what we have found is that life can be even richer in ways never imagined because of love - and the love of those who were once total strangers. This may seem to be an unusual way to experience heaven now but it gives me a deep and abiding gratitude.

And I would add to my posted comment, it gives me a deep gratitude and appreciation of now. What helps me to manage the stress, fear, and uncertainty is this gratitude and my faith in God (or whatever one may call the divine) and the beauty of the human heart. 

Hospital garden, view from oncology at UVM Medical Hospital.

Father's thoughts to share:

WORDS FOR THE WEEKEND

July 1, 2018; 13th Sunday in Ordinary time; Mark 5:21-43
Fr. Robert deLeon, CSC

“Jesus said, ‘Do not fear, only believe. The child is not dead but sleeping.’ Jesus took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up.” (Mark 5:36, 39, 41-42)

What is death? I’ve been intrigued by this question with its illusive answer as far back as I can remember, the many pet graves in our backyard attesting to my fascination with the beyond. How many beloved birds, fish, hamsters, and turtles were laid to rest as I presided over the burials. What is this thing DEATH?

Just recently, in casual conversation with a hospital colleague, I was asked what I might have become were I not a priest. I heard words emerging from my subconscious, “I think I’d be a funeral director.” A bit stunned by what I heard myself saying, I realized that the question—what is death?—remains a gnawing mystery.

Divine Providence, I believe, has led me to become a priest and a hospital chaplain, has led me to the very center of the continuing search. Indeed, I have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death for many years now. And here, where one might expect to encounter dismal darkness, I regularly experience vibrant life—honest, pure, simple.

The gospel passage we hear today invites us to consider the mystery of death. By the example of Jesus, we are challenged to put our faith in God who is Lord of both the living and the dead. When approached by the grieving family of a young girl who has just died, “Jesus said, ‘The child is not dead but sleeping.’ Jesus took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Do not fear, only believe. Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up.” (Mark 5:36, 39, 41-42)

Now, it could be that the girl really was only asleep, not dead, and Jesus was the only one to perceive the truth. More likely, I believe, is that Jesus is speaking metaphorically of death. The little girl was truly as dead as dead could be. Were it not so, Jesus raising her would be no miracle at all, only an abrupt arousal from her nap. And we must keep in mind what the gospel doesn’t reveal: while Jesus did raise up this little girl, she eventually died and stayed dead, as did every one of the other miraculous resurrections Jesus worked as related in the gospel accounts. Death is the only doorway to heaven, and Jesus greatly desires heaven for all of us.

What, then, to make of so many questions about the meaning of death? We have to admit that there is just so much we do not understand, even about our physical, observable world. A news report reminds us that we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do: “Soon after scientists landed by helicopter in Indonesia’s Foja Mountains, an area in the eastern province of Papua with roughly 2 million acres of pristine tropical forest, they stumbled on a primitive egg-laying mammal that simply allowed itself to be picked up and brought to their field camp. Describing a ‘Lost World,’ apparently never visited by humans, members of the team said they also saw large mammals that have been hunted to near-extinction elsewhere and discovered dozens of exotic new species of frogs, butterflies and palms.” (Associated Press, February 8, 2006)

If we have not yet discovered all there is to be discovered in the physical world, how much of the spiritual must yet remain a mystery to us. How much remains to be comprehended only by heaven’s glorious light!

While I don’t expect my curiosity about death to be stilled during my earthly sojourn, the journey towards an answer is not in vain. Daily it thrills me, the unaccustomed intimacy with those at the edge, with life at its most honest, pure and simple.

Until that day of final revelation, then, let us strive to content ourselves with Jesus’ words in the face of the great mystery, “Do not fear, only believe.”

Sunset from our front porch, the promise of tomorrow.