January 2024

     Following are some “spiritual highlights” from my life to date.

     …growing up in the practice of the Faith, within walking distance of our parish,
parents sacrificing to provide a Catholic education, my father’s service as a lector,
and my mother, coordinating perpetual Eucharistic adoration, Children of Mary
Sodality, and major fundraisers at the Jesuit high school my brothers attended;
creating beauty through painting, various forms of needlework, and even laying the
brick patio in our back yard!

     …attending daily Mass at St. Louis University…a weekend at Fordyce House with
the brilliant and humble Fr. Walter J. Ong, S.J., as retreat master...a particularly
life-giving experience of reconciliation at the College Church. These preceded a
deeper appreciation of Scripture and the development of an interest in personal
prayer.

     …marriage, the loss of our first child, anguish as to whether there would be any
children, then the arrival of three daughters and a son!

     …a March for Life pilgrimage when my Gregory was in high school...Hotard bus
drivers wending their way through the darkness during heavy snowfall over single-
lane roads to a parish hall somewhere in Pennsylvania, to recharge over a delicious
lasagna dinner, courtesy of a Knights of Columbus council, and then on to D.C.

     …impromptu service as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion one
evening when my heart was very heavy…Standing at the credence table,
consuming the remaining contents of the chalice, I experienced a sense that Jesus
was gently reminding me, “This is my body and precious blood shed for you. Just
for you...” and returned home to spend the evening in prayerful thanksgiving.

     …watching while on retreat as the angle of the sun over the water of the lake
created the appearance of mounds of shimmering diamonds cascading toward me,
and then noticing a purple stone in the path, surrounded by sand such that it took
on the shape of a heart. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have called
you, and you are mine (see Jeremiah 31:3).

     …in the chapel at the Cenacle one year, I poured out my heart concerning a
troubling and perplexing situation. “I’ve got your back!” came a clear and
immediate response. Wait, did you just speak to me, Lord? The situation perdured,
and I pondered that moment in prayer from time to time, until one day I recalled an
incident that occurred when I was a little girl. My mother was attempting to teach
me that, rather than saying, “I’ve got…” it was preferable to say, “I have…” I
persisted, “explaining” that “I’ve got” is a contraction for “I have got!” I believe
that our heavenly Father revealed to me in a very tender way that He was indeed
watching over me with loving care, and has been all along. The difficult situation
eventually resolved.

     These experiences of Our Lord’s personal and steadfast love—through regular
prayer with Scripture, daily Mass, family, faith community, nature, Eucharistic
adoration, spiritual direction, and the sacrament of reconciliation—continue to
sustain and heal me in the aftermath of the loss of my son, who on July 2 took his
life following years of struggle and untold suffering. Aware that Gregory was
really struggling, I had held his senior picture in my folded hands as Fr. Tim gave
Benediction at the conclusion of the holy hour for women in May.

     A friend and I prayed Divine Mercy chaplets while she and I drove toward
Gregory’s apartment from different locales. Friends of one of my daughters called
to offer condolences and to say that they felt a distinct sense of peace and of the
presence of Our Lady. The coroner was a devout Catholic who with his wife
ministers to those with special needs, and there was the woman who stood
respectfully at a distance and, when our eyes met, gently asked, “Is there anything I
can do?”

     A tsunami of love and care has overwhelmed our family. Gregory received a
Christian service and burial attended by family and friends from far and near, and
we were grateful for the kind hospitality and lovely and unhurried meal afterward
at First United Methodist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. A Memorial Mass was
celebrated at St. Catherine in August, followed by a gathering afterward in the
priest residence. Our beloved Archbishop Aymond, for whom I have the privilege
to work, was principal celebrant, with Fr. Tim, Fr. Kevin, and Fr. Jeremy
concelebrating, and Deacons Cuong Tran and Paul Hauck serving at the altar.
Thank you all.

     Every kind word, assurance of prayer, Mass intention, spiritual enrollment, meal,
service rendered, offer of a home, plant, floral arrangement, pledge to availability
to talk, has been deeply appreciated and received not infrequently with tears of
humble gratitude.

     Though brief, an overnight grief support retreat held at the Cenacle last summer
was very helpful, and the courage of others in their respective struggles, quite
moving. I continue to pray with notes I took during the Red Bird Ministries
weekend for mothers of loss, held in Schriever and staffed by a team of
women—all of whom have lost one or more children—and ministry chaplain Fr.
Rusty Bruce of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. The members of our parish grief
support ministry—Patricia Lawson, Becky Steppe, and Bob Breck—gave
generously of themselves in accompanying a group of us over the past several
months.

     Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure writes, “Let us conclude then with St. Augustine: “All
that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other
causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by
His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we
cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence,
show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not
send it [to] us without cause” (Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence: The Secret
of Peace and Happiness, p. 10).