In The Stillness
The beautiful woman above is the mother of my dear friend, Sr. Mary Clare. Joan lived to be 101 and by all accounts was just a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, sister, and philanthropist.
It was so nice to be invited to the Vigil /celebration of her life and then to her funeral the following day.
Finding the location of the Vigil was anything but a holy experience. Ha ha.
I confirmed with my brother-in-law, Albert, where it was but because I was not wearing my glasses at the time…I read his text as saying the Vigil was in another city (Sherwood Park) instead of at the chapel just down the road from our house.
Yup, after an hour of driving there and back and finally figuring it out …we were then LOCKED out ! But it all ended up o.k. when the funeral directors for Connolly-McKinley heard my knock and tentatively opened the door. And , it just happened to be the same lady who did a great job at my friend, Bob’s recent funeral!
We weren’t there long but we were there long enough to give Sr. Mary Clare a hug and to hear Paula and Albert who sang and played piano respectively and beautifully.
There is something so beautiful about sitting in the stillness of a lovely church and praying.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a particularly pretty church and there was nice attendance from the many children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends and family.
Sr. Mary Clare sang with her other two sisters (she is in blue in the middle) and they did an incredible job. It so difficult to sing for someone you love that has passed ….I know this.
Today I read in the news that if the Ukraine joins NATO that Putin will start World War 3. There was a shooting massacre in Thailand this week and a suicide bombing in Afghanistan where over 50 people were killed in a classroom.
There are innumerable tragedies all over the world and I am mourning.
Let us find time to sit in the silence. Let us mourn our dead. Let us appeal to the One who is very aware of our plights and will come to us if we just ask.
God bless you.
Let me leave you with this prayer and a song…..
“We long to become disciples of silence and hear in that shimmery soundlessness the voice of the One who whispers in stillness, whose singing vibrates in stones, who out of the silence calls forth a radical commitment of which we do not yet know the shape. “ – Christine Valters Paintner