Mom, John the Baptizer, & Office for the Dead

A week after the death of my mother, and 2 days after her funeral, I'm feeling very, very alone and empty. One moment I'm crying and shouting and screaming and the next minute just sort of staring and putting one foot in front of the other and wondering what the point is. Then God reminds me that Answers really aren't my department. He tells me nicely, I mean, more nicely than that, but basically He seems to be reminding me what we all know that Why isn't a question for which I as a mortal really need an answer. "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."

Following Him these days seems to involve lots of Tears of Sorrow and Tears of Gratitude and Resignation and Acceptance. And Obedience. And more Gratitude.

Because really although I really, really, really, really do NOT like (at a gut level) to acknowledge this ... Mom was, like everything and everyone else, a Gift.

A sheer Gift. God's Gift.

I did nothing to deserve her. I did nothing ro buy her or her time. I did nothing to earn her. Like God's Grace, she came with no strings attached and although, like all Grace bestowed on us mortals, she was sometimes not what I expected at all, she was, like all Grace, God's Blessing for me and for others ... for a time ... and she belonged not to me but to Another. Like all mortal Gifts, she was here for a time and then gone.

But oh God I miss her so much. So, so, so much. Oh God.

Fortunately God in His Mercy seems sometimes to be arranging things to give little Charles Delacroix comfort in the midst of this loss.

She was buried Monday; and I'm still very grateful that her burial was on the Feast of St Monica: what a wonderful gift, as a mother she was to St Augustine, whose feast we celebrated just yesterday. Well, yesterday I visited her grave and just cried and cried; and felt that Mary and Jesus and all the saints and angels were there crying too. But I couldn't seem to pray. So I asked them to pray for me. I have no doubt they did as they do for all of us. And I am so grateful. But what a gift that today God gave me courage to first say the Office for the Dead at her grave. I just plain couldn't get myself to go to this Office till today. Not even on Monday could I get myself to say this Office. But today God did for me what I could not do for myself as always and by His Grace I was able to pray this Office. And this Office ... mumbled through tears though it was ... was such a wonderful blessing. I've always loved this Office for the Dead: it is at once full of boldness and comfort and forthrightness and honesty and truth. That is, it is full of Christ.

Then, after I said the Office for the Dead this morning, as the sun rose, I said Morning Prayer for the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptizer who we celebrate today. This too was such a comfort. For my mother's birthday is June 24: the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptizer. John the Baptizer, who leapt in Elizabeth's womb in the Presence of Christ in the Womb of Our Blessed Lady. John the Baptizer,the great Proto-Martyr for Christ. John the Baptizer, he who shows us the Lamb of God. A rough, rough man ... who reminds me that the Way of Christ, the Way to Christ, is a Way of Poverty of Spirit, a Way of rough ways and byways, and often a very Solitary Way.

Later today I visited an art gallery here in town that has long enjoyed the benefits of a great benefactor who endowed the gallery with a collection of Italian art that is simply amazing. Of course to the gallery it's art; to you and me, though, these would be Icons, and sacred art, through which God speaks to us in His "sacra conversazionis". There were an extraordinary, to me, or to me especially under the circumstances, range of paintings and Ikons of Madonna and Child. And historically, icons with depictions of the Holy Mother with Her Child so often included, in one way or another, John the Baptizer.

I take all these things very much to heart as a real comfort. OK, so I realize it may seem a stretch. But hey. I am told that There Are No Coincidences; nothing happens "by accident." What I take away from all this is therefore to me neither more nor less nor other than the Voice of God saying to little Charles Delacroix that although I am in sorrow now, everything's OK ... "all will be well and all will be well and all will be most well". My earthly mother was an Icon or an earthly reflection of an Icon of all of our mothers; and all are reflections of saintly mothers like St Monica and St Elizabeth and of course Mary Most Holy. I take it that it's OK for me to sorrow, as St Augustine sorrowed deeply upon the death of his dear mother. It's OK for me to hurt and to feel pain and suffering in some pale reflection of the pain and suffering of the Proto-Martyr John the Baptizer who died for declaring the Presence of the Lamb of God in the Womb and out of the Womb of Mary the Mother above all Mothers. And it's OK for me to celebrate my own mother as a reflection of a reflection of the Mother of God.

I forgot to mention that there was a painting also of Mary emerging from her Dormition, and being escorted by angels and saints to Heaven, where Jesus stood to Crown her Queen of Heaven and Earth. A beautiful, moving painting. And my mother was given the grace of dying on the the Feast of Mary's Queenship last Wednesday.

So yes I do miss my mother so very very very much ... yet it is such a blessing to have had her give birth to me and rear me and nurture me and be with me for a time. Now God has Called her home, and I dare Hope in Christ that, God willing, I might get to see her once again, free of her suffering in this world.

In the meantime, if God gives me the grace to do so, I plan to go to her graveside once again tomorrow and pray the Office for the Dead for her. I ask also for the prayers of St Monica and St Augustine, of St Elizabeth and St John the Baptizer, the prayers of all the angels and saints, and especially of Mary Most Holy Mother of God.

And may Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who leads us all on our Way of the Cross in this world, . embrace His Own Who die in Him. May He in Whom we live and move and have our being, provide us with whatever we need in order to Follow Christ. And may our world, washed by the tears of the Sorrowful Mother, cleansed by the Blood of Christ, provide good things to mothers everywhere.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptizer