A Sunday Morning Thought to Start the Week Off Right
A 26 year old friend of one of our sons died this past week. After graduating from college in New York, she worked at a Catholic hospitality center for pregnant women in Arizona called "Maggie's Place." As the website explains:
She and her espoused married this past November, in spite of her uncertain future. My wife and I attended the wedding Mass. Our son and his girlfriend were in the wedding party.
When we congratulated the newlyweds after the ceremony, you could see and feel their happiness. While we didn't attend the reception, one of our sons was on the wait staff of the catering facility and reported that everyone had a wonderful time.
We had met the groom a few times before the wedding, since he was a friend of our son, but not the bride, who was also a friend. All that we knew of her we learned from our son. He was at the hospital visiting his friend (a corporal work of mercy) when she died. He called to tell us when it happened.
Please pray for Hannah and her surviving husband, Marc.
Who can understand how this sad and tragic turn in Hannah and Marc's life fits into God's Plan? It was only about two months from their wedding day that Hannah died. Perhaps someday my son - so distraught when he called us to tell us the news - will understand why God took Hannah. Perhaps not. God's ways are often mysterious; we may never understand His Plan during our sojourn in this valley of tears.
Did Hannah go straight to Heaven? We don't know. She suffered through a real purgatory of medical treatment. Her final illness was especially difficult. We pray for the dead because we don't really know.
What we do know is that our prayers are efficacious. And if Hannah is in Heaven, Our Blessed Mother will direct our prayers for her soul to those still suffering in purgatory. Hannah, if she is in Heaven, will be praying for us, a saint in Heaven who can intercede for her loved ones on earth. Our Faith teaches us these things.
I hope Our Blessed Mother will comfort Marc. I hope our son and his girlfriend derive some comfort from their Faith.
This is my hope and my prayer today and this week.
Maggie's Place is a community that provides houses of hospitality for expectant women who are alone or on the streets and wish to achieve their goals in a dignified atmosphere.While working there, she and a college classmate struck up a correspondance. She returned to Connecticut, where she grew up, for cancer treatment. They were engaged. Her medical treatment for cancer was difficult and culminated in a bone marrow transplant. The hope was this would allow her to live cancer-free. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. This time it didn't.
She and her espoused married this past November, in spite of her uncertain future. My wife and I attended the wedding Mass. Our son and his girlfriend were in the wedding party.
When we congratulated the newlyweds after the ceremony, you could see and feel their happiness. While we didn't attend the reception, one of our sons was on the wait staff of the catering facility and reported that everyone had a wonderful time.
We had met the groom a few times before the wedding, since he was a friend of our son, but not the bride, who was also a friend. All that we knew of her we learned from our son. He was at the hospital visiting his friend (a corporal work of mercy) when she died. He called to tell us when it happened.
Please pray for Hannah and her surviving husband, Marc.
Who can understand how this sad and tragic turn in Hannah and Marc's life fits into God's Plan? It was only about two months from their wedding day that Hannah died. Perhaps someday my son - so distraught when he called us to tell us the news - will understand why God took Hannah. Perhaps not. God's ways are often mysterious; we may never understand His Plan during our sojourn in this valley of tears.
Did Hannah go straight to Heaven? We don't know. She suffered through a real purgatory of medical treatment. Her final illness was especially difficult. We pray for the dead because we don't really know.
What we do know is that our prayers are efficacious. And if Hannah is in Heaven, Our Blessed Mother will direct our prayers for her soul to those still suffering in purgatory. Hannah, if she is in Heaven, will be praying for us, a saint in Heaven who can intercede for her loved ones on earth. Our Faith teaches us these things.
I hope Our Blessed Mother will comfort Marc. I hope our son and his girlfriend derive some comfort from their Faith.
This is my hope and my prayer today and this week.
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