- It was a lovely Protestant service, but I couldn't help but feel we were all missing something by not having a funeral mass. It's like I knew the only thing that could calm me down is the peace of the Eucharist. And how nice would it have been for us to all be taking communion together?
- My Nana, though overall a good lady, still had some hang ups throughout her life. Did she forgive and forget during the course of her disease? Everyone was all talking about how she was definitely in Heaven; poor little old me is wondering how much time she has to spend in Purgatory, or if she even has to spend any in Purgatory at all because she suffered so much here. Then again, she didn't offer it up, so it doesn't count right? Or does it because she was Protestant and really didn't know any better? Unfortunately, I can't turn to my family for answers to these questions since no one is Catholic.
- She went so quickly. But she outlived all her friends and family and got rid of a bout with pneumonia not too long ago. She always said that even though she loved us greatly, when her husband died, she was ready for God to take her any day. Some afternoons, I'd come home and she'd be back in her chair crying about how much she missed my Grandfather and how she couldn't understand why she was still here. In my heart of hearts, I'd like to believe she worked things out. And even deeper in my heart of hearts, I'd like to believe that someone, a guardian angel or maybe even my grandfather, offered her the chance to pass or to stay while on her way to the hospital. I really believe she had a choice, and I believe she took it. I just feel it in my gut.
- Our priest locks our chapel. During daylight hours. Honestly, what's the point of being Catholic if I can't go worship and sit with Jesus any time I want? One of the reasons I left the Protestant faith(s) was because it was so Sunday/Wednesday-ish. I want church, God, Jesus in my everyday. I honestly could have marched right over to his house, knocked on his door, and pestered him to open it for me just so I could sit and cry in front of Jesus for a bit.
- But how awesome is it that I could walk over to my priest's house and ask him to open up the chapel? Yet another cause for priestly celibacy is that while he may lose out on lay life as a father and parish member, he gets an entire Parish as family. And parish members don't feel bad or guilty for bothering him or "taking up his time" with their problems because what else is a single priest with no kids going to do besides pray, visit the elderly, and run and maintain a parish? He has no tension between his family, work, and spiritual life. They are all balanced in his vocation. He has no other obligations but to the Church.
- I'm still mad, but I'm not mad at God. I'm mad at our fallen Human condition. I just know God never wanted or intended our existence to be this way. The is evidenced by the fact that He put us in Paradise. We took it away from ourselves. And because He loved us, even if we screwed everything up and threw everything off balance, He sought to make it right. He wanted us to have eternal life, to have paradise. He gave us Jesus. He set the scales back aright. In a perfect world, these sorts of things would not happen. I'm not claiming to know the thoughts of God, but the more I ponder it, the more I am just wholeheartedly convinced if He didn't want us to live eternally with Him, for us to have Paradise once again, to spare us of suffering, infirmaries, and time, He never would have sent Jesus to redeem us. Obvious and simple, but it carries so much weight these days.
- All the more reason to keep my eyes on the Kingdom.
- I miss my Nana more now than ever. It was one thing to spend time with her and know she couldn't talk to me or move or go shopping with me or curl my hair or play solitaire or sew with me; it's completely another thing to know I'll never even see her again as long as I am Earth bound. And I think our bodies instinctively know this isn't how things were meant to be. And I think that's why, religious or not, we cry when someone dies.
I can't articulate my thoughts completely. That's just what's floating around.
Oh 2012. I hoped for the promise of change, and oh how I've gotten it in some of the most unexpected ways.
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