When I went to pick my grandma up from St. Joseph’s Little Sisters of the Poor this morning, she told the nurse’s aid in her room that she was going to have lunch with the bishop. Actually that wasn’t exactly what my mom and I had planned, though Bishop DiLorenzo did wish her a happy birthday at Mass before we gathered at the Lord’s table to share the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.
As I was driving my one living grandparent (my mom’s mom) from Little Sisters to the Pastoral Center, she made mention of the beauty of the trees and gardens, and she asked me
how I was doing, how my husband has been, the usual questions, the ones she’d already asked me before we even made it down the hall and out the door. I realized today would be a recurring revelations and recuing the same questions kind of day. While thanking God for the gift of my grandmother, who along with my mother, has taught me so much about how to be a prayer-filled, servant oriented, Catholic Christian, I wondered if God sometimes feel like we keep making the same observations in life and asking the same questions.
Lord, thank you for the many miracles You give us throughout our lives. Please help us to be especially mindful and grateful for the people You place in our path to love from the moment of their conception to their natural death. Amen.
When I went to pick my grandma up from St. Joseph’s Little Sisters of the Poor this morning, she told the nurse’s aid in her room that she was going to have lunch with the bishop. Actually that wasn’t exactly what my mom and I had planned, though Bishop DiLorenzo did wish her a happy birthday at Mass before we gathered at the Lord’s table to share the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. As I was driving my one living grandparent (my mom’s mom) from Little Sisters to the Pastoral Center, she made mention of the beauty of the trees and gardens, and she asked me
how I was doing, how my husband has been, the usual questions, the ones she’d already asked me before we even made it down the hall and out the door. I realized today would be a recurring revelations and recuing the same questions kind of day. While thanking God for the gift of my grandmother, who along with my mother, has taught me so much about how to be a prayer-filled, servant oriented, Catholic Christian, I wondered if God sometimes feel like we keep making the same observations in life and asking the same questions.
Two things to note, though, are that my grandma often makes some mention of the beauty of nature, and she always asks me and my loved ones how things are going. If you’re going to repeat some things over and over on the days when your memory slips or skips, then why not have it be that you appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and that you are interested in how others are doing?
This past weekend, Fr. Jim Arsenault asked those of us in the congregation to raise our hands if we believe in miracles. I had to raise my hand for many reasons. My grandmother is one of the miracles. She’s outlived many doctors’ and nurses’ predictions. She remained positive and determined to get better even when her oncologist gave up on her. We were praising God and had to laugh when my grandmother got kicked out of hospice care, because they didn’t think someone who was out and about as often as she was qualified any longer. She’d been trying to tell them it wasn’t her time for a while. Lord, thank you for the many miracles You give us throughout our lives. Please help us to be especially mindful and grateful for the people You place in our path to love from the moment of their conception to their natural death. Amen.
