Seeing smiling, happy orphans made the difference

By Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo

Last week’s story continued.

Cathy and Bill were at the threshold of death, but I could not, and did not want to, tell them goodbye. In Bill’s case, it was impossible for me even to visit him. The day before leaving Vancouver, I told Cathy I would pray for her at St. Peter’s Basilica. On hearing this, she could not stop her tears from flowing.

Both Bill and Cathy died while I was in Rome. It was by mere chance that I got home the day before Cathy’s funeral. I was very sad when I heard of their deaths, yet also happy that they were at peace with God. Silently I prayed: “In Paradisum Perducant te Angeli” (“May the angels bring you to paradise”).

At the service for Cathy, I stood behind the family and could see her husband, Rob, trying to hold back tears and comfort his little boy and his daughter, Louise. As I approached Rob at the reception, he reached into his jacket and handed me some letters and notes in Cathy’s frail handwriting. I would like to share a few with you.

“Dear Father, do not worry about Bill. I visited him. The day before he died, he asked to receive the last rites, and in his farewell, he smiled. I should tell you, too, that he blessed God for the AIDS by which He made him understand the mystery of suffering.”

Another was a prayer that I call her consecration to God: “My God, You have removed the veil that softens the touch of Your hand upon my heart. Now I feel the intimacy of Your love in such a way that I am lost, lost in a union of pure love, lost in the will, the heart, the Blood of You, my Beloved.”

During her illness there was a gradual transfiguration in Cathy. Living with cancer, even her fever seemed to be coming from her love of God. She became love. I was touched by the splendour of so holy a soul. I compared her to St. Therese, the Little Flower of Lisieux, whose ordinary life was extraordinary.

At the end of one of Cathy’s letters she wrote, “Now I am engraving the last stone of my cathedral, of my holiness; God taught me to live with cancer, living simultaneously with Christ.”

Rob came to see me later and said, “Father, in Cathy’s illness and her death, I began to understand the intensity of Divine Love. I am grieving but continue to grasp how ‘wide, long, high, and deep’ is the love of Christ. I am worried, however, for Louise; speak with her, please.”

I did. There were pangs of remorse in Louise’s little heart every time she entered her mum’s room. She spent hours looking at family pictures, crying over those of herself and her mum together. She refused to eat and became withdrawn.

In my first visit after Cathy’s death, Louise told me: “Father, please, tell Dad I do not want to see the counsellor.” I wanted to tell her that if she did not stop crying, her mum would suffer, but I could not say that, because people do not suffer in heaven.

Again God came to my rescue. I invited Louise to join a group of my students at spring break on a pilgrimage to Mexico to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to Acapulco, and to an orphanage. I knew that, to heal, she needed to see people more miserable than she was feeling.

Louise was amazingly transformed, seeing the poor children at Hogar de Nazareth, living in true misery, who were nevertheless so happy and smiling. She had a talk with Sister Fatima, director of the orphanage. Only God knows what happened between them. There was an incredible change in Louise and I never saw her crying again. Was it a miracle? I think it was her mother’s intervention.

Many years have passed. Louise is now in a convent. I was recently invited to preach the day she was accepted into the novitiate. She was radiant, and seeing the angelic look on her face, I could not help but feel that Cathy was living in her or with her.

I think that we priests need to discover the sanctity of many of our parishioners kneeling in the pews of our churches. They are asking that we be their spiritual directors, the guides of their souls.

However we cannot accomplish this pastoral task unless we try to reach a certain perfection ourselves. If we do not spend more time in contemplative prayer, by which God illuminates our guidance, our efforts could be in vain.

In previous years, parishes and convents were crowded with priests and nuns. There were so many priests ranging in age from young to old. Convents were in the middle of the town.

It was easier, then, for the faithful to be guided by a spiritual director. Now, it is different. With the shortage of priests, the increase in parishioners, and living in an age of endless numbers of meetings, we lack time.

Msgr. Lopez-Gallo’s columns are available in two volumes for $20 each from St. Andrew’s Church Supply, 275 E. 8 Ave., Vancouver, V5T 1R9, or toll-free at 1-800-663-7161. Proceeds will go to Hogar de Nazareth Orphanage in Mexico, which he sponsors.