Death

Death is most likely the most important moment of our life, outside of the fact that we were born.

Moments in nature can be prepared for.   Giving birth is a natural process and we have discovered ways that a woman and her husband can prepare for the giving of birth, to make it easier. . . .   I am discovering that death, too, can be prepared for.  People who have had a “near-death experience” can tell us some of the first things to expect when dying.  I am a neophyte in this.  I have not thought about the natural process of dying, so I am embarking on a research venture, asking God to lead me.  Do you know anything about this?

Sisters Marguerite Barbein and Leonette Bursch have just died.  I will pray to them to help me in this venture.

Desire

I feel like I’m swimming in an ocean of desire. 

The huge upheaval in Egypt swept up out of an aching desire on the part of the Egyptian people for their freedom from a corrupt regime.  Desire, freedom, want, longing for, seeking, are words that attempt to describe the human heart.

The 33 miners who had been trapped for over two months and then were rescued still seek healing from their horrible experience.  Many returning veterans long for their former life of innocence from the horrors of war.

Wherever I look, there is desire.  Today is Valentine’s Day.  Love is desire.  The translation of “I love you” in Spanish is: “te quiero”, or “I want you”.    Someone recently reminded me that a vacuum always seeks to be filled.  Desire is like a vacuum which attracts the loved one and the union with God and with others for which we were created. 

The choice to live in poverty “without anything of one’s own” by Saint Francis was indeed the desire to be open for love in God, who is love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Caged

Did you ever watch a bee that’s caught between a screen and a window?  It’s a pitiful sight as it desperately searches for a way to freedom.  Nowadays we try not to crush a honey bee because it is so precious and we will help it to find its way out.

On Monday of this week I visited a prisoner in jail.  He was jailed because he was caught a second time driving without a license.  Of course, he can’t get a license to drive because he is from a different country and can’t get documentation.  He told me that he has worked in our area for seven years, and that the owner depends on him if he has to leave for awhile.   This prisoner has a wife and three-month old baby.

I wondered how this man feels there in jail.