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 7th,
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.
