WHAT MATTERS TO MARY OUR HEAVENLY MOTHER

WHAT MATTERS TO MARY

        “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in the effort to win a soul for God.”

            So often it is through the voice of Mary that we are led by the Spirit into what matters to God. Over the course of my forty years of being a husband, father, youth minister and teacher, I can’t begin to tell you how many times that voice followed by an irresistible urge has led me to be an instrument of beautiful moments – moments where Christ is made known and the Spirit of His Love penetrates powerfully into the lives of my family, friends, colleagues, and students.   

            One such moment happened this week and it is difficult to express in words how profoundly it moved me.

            It started a few days ago when I received a call from a good friend that the mother of a family very dear to me was in the intensive care unit of a major Boston hospital. Since 1972 she and her husband, as well as their daughter, had teamed with me on countless Antioch retreats. And as anyone who has been on Antiochs would know they had shared with me some of the happiest moments of joy-filled love and community that I have ever known.

            The close contact to my dying friend got back to me the next evening with the hospital’s name and address. She also gave me the room number at the hospital, as well as a direct line phone number for that room. I was determined to visit though I had never been to Boston Medical Center, and was not at all familiar with where it was, the Roxbury section of Boston.

            But determined as I was to visit, I had no idea, intention, or plan to be by my friend’s bedside within ten hours of getting the hospital info. Yet our Heavenly Mother had a different plan, and ten hours later by my friend’s bedside is exactly where I would be.

            Events moved quickly upon receiving the hospital information. I received a text very early, even before dawn the next morning from my close contact with my friend’s family. The text told me that my friend had taken a turn for the worse around 3:00 AM that night. The text told me that my friend was failing fast, and all indications were that soon, very soon, she would pass from this life.

            Was it “by chance” or “by Providence” I had been asked the previous evening to that text to drive someone into Boston’s Logan Airport – to drive someone into the airport for 8:00 AM the same morning that I had received the urgent text? By Providence of course! If ever I have known the guiding Hand of God’s Love reaching out to me through Mary, it was that morning of my friend’s passing. So it was that by 7:00 AM on the morning of my friend’s passing I was heading into Boston’s airport at the height of rush hour traffic.

            How did I know that this morning was different – a morning that in a special way that would be led and guided by a heavenly hand? First there was the gentle whisper of Mary telling me that “You will need to see her now.” The voice was unmistakable. That quiet, serene yet firm voice of our Heavenly Mother was speaking to me – that same voice which magnifies the Lord’s Love so magnificently, that same voice that has guided me to such beautiful moments with family, friends, and students so many times over the years was again speaking to me now.

            Was it really a voice from the Queen of Heaven? The irresistible urge that always follows upon the call of Divine Love made the Source of the message all too clear to me.

            But even more than that, there were the unmistakable signs that Mary was at work here, our Heavenly Mother doing in the life of her child, my dying friend, what she does in the lives of all Her children: leading my friend into the fullness of Her Son’s embrace, leading my friend into the fullness of the Life, the Love, and the Joy of Jesus.

            What were the signs of Her leading, of God working through Mary to make this visit happen? The signs were the clear and compelling indications all along the course of my journey that the Power of Heaven was making this visit happen – making a way for the visit to happen at a time when usually there would be no way for it to happen.

            For example, where was “rush hour” that morning? A Wednesday in a work week, yet the traffic on the highway into Boston’s airport that morning was light to moderate, and moving well at all times. Before I knew it I was at Logan well before 8:00 AM, and already I sensed – no, rather I knew – that a Heavenly Hand was at work in my life in a special way that morning.  

            At the point of 8:00 AM at the airport the urge to visit my friend at Boston Medical was irresistible. Mary would see to it that the Spirit of God was upon me, and that driven by the Spirit I’d be the agent of God’s Love that morning.

            I set the GPS for the hospital’s address, and the GPS told me that Boston Medical was only fifteen minutes away. There was no way that could be true at that hour in work day traffic. What did the GPS know about Boston’s formidable “rush hour”? But then again maybe the GPS in some mystic way knew of the Powers at work this morning in a way that I had still yet to believe possible.

            Still the visit to the bedside of my friend was now an imperative. I was consumed at this point with an irresistible urge and need to heed a Heavenly summons. I believed that I was answering a call from Mary to be the instrument of God’s Peace and Love in the life of my friend. What a solemn, wondrous thought, yet at the same time a thought so sobering and humbling – that such an awesome Grace should be granted to us, a Grace that we need to be open to: that we are called to be the agent of God’s Love in the lives of others, especially in the lives of the people we love; the incredible Grace that our lives and our love in Christ can be healing balm, an oasis of life and water in the desert of this world, a light in the dark moments of human life and the “salt” of our earthly existence.

            So from Logan at 8:00 AM on Wednesday, August 7^th, I set out for Boston Medical. I had to. The  “rush of the Spirit” was upon me.

            And as with the trip into Boston, the “rush hour” traffic was nowhere to be found. Even as I went from Logan through the Ted Williams tunnel and then on to the Mass Pike extension, I did the whole trip in nothing more than light traffic. Yet how could that be? Time and time again in my work I do this same route at the height of “rush hour” and experience nothing less than “grid lock” traffic – especially in the Ted Williams Tunnel between eight and nine in the morning. But on this special day nothing – light traffic at all times, as pleasant as cruising through the countryside on a Sunday afternoon.

            I was at the hospital in the fifteen minutes foretold by the GPS, a time calculated of course for an open highway with no delays and hold-ups. And today that is exactly the way it was – no grid lock, no rush hour, no delays.

            Approaching the hospital I could see that up and down the length of Mass Ave. every parking space on either side of the road was taken. I expected that. It’s always that way in Boston on a busy work morning. But deep within me I was surprised to hear the words, “Oh you of little faith!” as I now saw only one open space – and that right in front of the entrance to the hospital. I literally could not believe it. I searched for a sign that would say “Parking in this spot is forbidden!” but there was no such sign. It was an open space right where I needed to have an open space. “Oh you of little faith!!!”  Believe me, the Lord, His Mother, and all the Saints have an incredible sense of humor, and Heaven will be filled with the laughter shared by those in Love.

            Yet though there was a parking space, parking at that spot would require quarters for the parking meter, one for each fifteen minutes of my visit. I had no change so I parked and then went quickly in the hospital entrance. I saw two food court places where I could possibly get change: a Duncan Donuts and a D’Angelo’s.

            The Duncan Donuts had a line with 20 people in it waiting for coffee. That would not do. The D’Angelo’s however had no line, but obviously it was also not the kind of place to be open at eight in the morning. Not to worry though… There behind the service counter of the D’Angelo’s was a smiling Hispanic gentlemen standing at the cash register and looking directly at me. That welcoming smile led me to approach him. I asked him if he could make change for me so that I could have some quarters for the parking meter. He said that they were not open, but still he would be glad to help me.

            In a moment quarters were in hand to pay for a car parked only seconds away. It was by this time that I was thinking “How I wish every day of my life would be like this!!!” Nothing was a problem that on any other day could and would be a problem. It was destined to be the case this morning that nothing was to stand in my way this day as I carried out my divinely appointed mission – and I knew now beyond a doubt that this was in fact the nature of my task – I was this day sent by my Heavenly Mother to be about Our Father’s business.      

            So no more than twenty minutes after I had left the airport I was at the bedside of my dying friend. Only by chance as well (But not really “by chance”!), I had left in my car the rosary I had purchased to give to my friend during my visit. Truly the visit was happening sooner than I had intended, sooner than I had planned, but the guiding Hand of God’s Love had made sure my gift would be with me when the Lord and His Mother wanted the visit to happen.

            There at my friend’s bedside I saw what I had seen with my own father’s passing only two months earlier, the signs of a person nearing the end of their earthly life and preparing to pass on to Eternity. My friend could not talk, and there was that semi-sleep of someone moving in and out of consciousness.

            I put the rosary in her hand, and told her that I was there. Over and over I repeated to her that Jesus and Mary loved her, and as those words comforted her I saw a light in her eyes. It was the light of peace, the light of an excited child when they know for certain that they are valued, cherished and loved. More than that it was the Light of Christmas and Easter, the Light of Christ’s Presence, the Light with which we glow when we experience Jesus with us and in us, alive in our midst, powerfully present and drawing us into His embrace.

            Silently I then I prayed over my friend that what I already saw happening would indeed happen, that Mary would lead my friend into the fullness of her Son’s embrace, into that fullness of Holy Communion with the Life, Love, and Joy of Jesus Her Son.

            After my visit I was to learn that my friend passed from this life only hours later. God had planned that visit, and Mary was His instrument to make it happen when and how it did.

            I sensed that even as it was happening, but then at the funeral I learned that there was a larger picture to the mission of Mary that morning which I had yet to understand. For my friend Mary our Heavenly Mother was the only Mother she was ever to have. My friend’s earthly mother went into a coma shortly after my friend’s birth, and remained in that state for thirteen years until she died. My friend from a very early age had turned to Mary for the comfort and closeness of the mother she would never have, and Mary responded powerfully to her plea and prayer. In Mary’s embrace I always saw in my friend the courage to proclaim Christ without fear. I always saw fulfilled in my friend the words of Mary spoken to all of us at Guadalupe: “Why do you fear? Do you not know that you are within the folds of my cloak, do you not know that you are in my arms?”

            And above all that same courage in Mary’s embrace is what I saw in my friend in the hours before her passing. Mary held her, carried her, and in Mary’s embrace she passed on without fear into the fullness of Holy Communion with Christ.