When We Die

Our hearts stop beating.  Our lungs no longer fill with air.  Our bodies cease to function.  Our immortal souls are released from our bodies.  We enter into eternal life, and our souls leave our physical bodies.  We only take with us, that which we are.

Reports from those who have returned include tunnels through which the soul flies at speeds unknown on earth.  Lights are brighter than any here.  Colors are vibrant and living.  Colors that have never been seen are visible to the soul who has left the body.
 
Read More Here at "His Unending Love."

Each One Has a History

I stood in the middle of the Antietam Battlefield today.
This is hallowed ground.
The battles that took place here during the American Civil War were so fierce, so bloody and so devastating that more lives were lost than had been in the War of 1812, The Spanish/American War, and the Revolutionary War combined.

There we stood.

Monuments, as well as original and restored structures all around us.

The movie we had watched in the Visitor's Center told us that during the morning following the battle, all that could be heard in the air throughout the fields and surrounding town were the moans and cries of the men.

How sobering. How very sobering.

My children and I made the Sign of the Cross as we stood amidst the corn fields where so much blood had been shed. We thanked God for our freedom. We prayed for the souls of those who gave their lives and those who had to go on living without them. We offered the Lord's prayer and we sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee".

As we made our way along the roads and trails, we came to the National Antietam Cemetery.

Thousands laid to rest...many with "unkown" markers.

We lingered when we came to the rows and rows of Pennsylvania fallen.

My daughter, 16, kept slowly turning 'round in circles looking out over the vast expanse of plots, saying, "This is amazing. Every single one of these people has a history and yet, we'll never know what it is...even those in the unknown graves have histories".

What a thought.

I pondered this for a while.

I wondered about the wives, the daughters, the sons, the grand-parents, the employers, the brothers and sisters and neighbors and pastors...who had to "hear the word" that their loved one or friend had died in battle. 

We do not know who they are nor what their lives were like afterward.

As I considered the events that led up to "this place", "this place of REST" and tried to formulate a "history" of each in my own mind...a thought came to me that was so comforting, so pleasing, and so real...

GOD knows their histories...every single one of them...He even knows the full name of each unknown soldier!

He knows how they died, where they died, why they died.
He was with them the day they were born and with them the day they fell.
HE IS WITH THEM NOW.

Not a single moment in their lives was in vain or remains unknown for GOD knows all...truer still...

GOD knows EACH.

On September 17, 1862, America found herself in the midst of the bloodiest single battle in  her history:

23,000 killed, wounded, or missing.

God created every single one of those 23,000 and though we would not recognize many of their faces were they standing next to us today...HE would...for He was their Father as He is our own.

And so, as I turned to leave the cemetery and looked back over my shoulder one last time...I smiled...for there is really no such thing as "an unknown soldier", is there?

Saintly Quotes - Preparation for Death

The Death of Saint Joseph

Picture source

First of all, it is a pleasure and an honor to be asked to contribute to this new blog. Thank you very much Mary for inviting me. I have been reading the past posts and each time I leave with a peaceful feeling in my soul.

My mom has a collection of old paperback books written by St. Alphonsus di Liguori and reprinted by a priest who wanted everyone to be able to read them. You may be familiar with them: The Glories of Mary, The Victories of the Martyrs, The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, The Holy Eucharist and Preparation for Death. I am currently reading the latter.

This particular book is full of quotes by saints and holy people and put together beautifully by St. Alphonsus di Liguori. The following are some of the quotes I thought were worth sharing:

"Go to the grave, contemplate dust, ashes, worms and sigh..." - St. John Chrysostom

"The true love for the body consists in treating it here with rigor and contempt, that it may be happy for eternity; and in refusing it all pleasures which might make it miserable forever..." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"My Jesus, no more sins! no more sins!" - St. Catherine of Genoa

"My soul has been given so many years in the world, and has not loved Thee. Give me light and strength to love Thee during the remainder of my life..." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"Consider yourself already dead, since you know that you must necessarily die." - St. Laurence Justinian

"...to lead a good life a man should always imagine himself at the hour of death..." - St. Bonaventure

"Look to the sins of your youth and be covered with shame. Remember the sins of manhood and weep. Look to the present disorders of your life: tremble, and hasten to apply a remedy." - St. Bernard

"...Remember that the Lord seeks not only flowers, but fruits; that is not only good desires and resolutions, but also holy works..." - St. Bernard

"Let us consider that Jesus Christ submitted to a cruel and ignominious death in order to obtain for us the grace of a good death." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"...And what will a Christian say, who knows by faith that at the moment of death eternity begins, and that moment he lays hold of two wheels, which draws with it either eternal joy or everlasting torments?" - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"...if you believe that you must die, that there is an eternity, that you can die only once, and that if you then err your error will be forever, irreparable, why do you not resolve to begin at this moment, to do all in your power to secure a good death?..." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"...Oh! hasten to apply a remedy in time, resolve to give yourself sincerely to God, and begin from this moment a life which, at the hour of death, will be to you a source, not of affliction, but of consolation. Give yourself up to prayer, frequent the sacraments, avoid all dangerous occasions, and, if necessary, leave the world, secure yourself eternal salvation, and be persuaded that to secure eternal life no precaution can be too great." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"Since our souls will be eternal, we ought to procure not a fortune which soon ends, but one that will be everlasting." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"...if you wish to live well, spend the remaining days of life with death before your eyes." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"Consider the end of life and you will love nothing in this world." - St. Laurence Justinian

"All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, of the eyes and the pride of life." - St. Laurence Justinian

"Memento Mori" - Remember Death

"I have always kept death before my eyes and therefore, now that it has arrived, I see nothing new in it." - Holy Hermit

"...is not he a fool who seeks after happiness in this world, where he will remain only a few days and exposes himself to the risk of being unhappy in the next, where we must live fore eternity? We do not fix our affections on borrowed goods, because we know that they must soon be returned to the owner. All the goods of this earth are lent to us..." - St. Alphonsus di Liguori

"The Lord waitheth patiently for your sake, not willing that anyone should perish, but that all should return to penance." - St. Peter

"O death! Where is Your Sting?"

This past Friday, as I sat in church listening to St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, these words hit me like a sledgehammer:

"Five times at the hands of the Jews I received 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, danger from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through sleepless nights, through hunger and thirsts, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches."

After a reading like this one can't help but reflect on St. Paul's great courage and his zeal for spreading the Gospel. But do you know what really struck me the most outside of the hardships that St. Paul underwent?
It was the fact that nothing, and I mean nothing can destroy us nor take our life without the express permission of God. St. Paul lived through each and every one of these horrors because God allowed it to be so. Only He has the ultimate power over life and death. Death cannot claim someone before their time. Some may ask:

Well, what about those who never make it out of the wombs of their mothers? Or children who die young? How about those whose lives are taken by another? Those killed by drunk drivers?

Here we get into the area of God's permitting will which differs from his perfect will. This "permitting will" entered after the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. This may be an area that is very difficult for us to understand but God does not ask us to understand....He asks us to trust. To trust that good will be brought out of even the greatest evil.

I have a very good friend who lost her teenage son at the hands of a drunk driver. One day, a few years after this tragic lost, she said to me, "Mary, I have to tell you, had my son not died when he did, I have reason to believe that his soul may have been lost had he stayed on earth." This woman had a beautiful mystical experience regarding the salvation of her son's soul and, what she had previously thought to be "the unkindness of Our Lord",  changed instantly after a small  glimpse of a mercy so great and a God so good that He allowed this young man to die early in order to save his soul. She still grieved but she no longer questioned.

St. Paul's love for the Lord was so great that he understood that death would come when it was time to go, no sooner no later. All the apostles understood this, also. Though most of their deaths came in the form of martyrdom, God brought such immense good out of each of their lives and deaths that we are still reaping its benefits thousands of years later.

Every single person on this earth has a mission and I, for one, believe that even those "little ones" who never got the chance to take a breath here on earth fulfilled the mission they were sent for. God thinks in terms of quality not quantity - the souls of these "little ones" may have been so beautiful already that stepping foot on this earth may have not even been necessary.

Many years ago, I remember, after suffering from years of infertility, finally seeing that beautiful plus sign on a home pregnancy test. I joyously made an appointment with my doctor....only to find out after further testing that it was an ectopic pregnancy. I remember crying and crying for days on end, no one could console me.  I realized that, though this baby was in the wrong place, a baby it was, soul and all, and though he or she wouldn't live that this child had a purpose, nonetheless. Oddly enough, this ectopic pregnancy paved the way for my daughter to be born. Somehow, after years of doctors not being able to get dye through my tubes, something happened. Not only did God prevent my tube from bursting, after the HCG numbers bottomed out signifying the baby's death, somehow the doctor was suddenly able to get the dye through the very tube that had previously contained the ectopic pregnancy while the other tube remained completely blocked as usual. My belief is that this pregnancy stretched the tube in the area where it was blocked and when the dye was pushed through, this area was "unblocked" and enabled me to conceive my daughter, Michaela.

I cannot prove this of course, but I believe it anyway. What else could explain it? God can bring great good, even out of circumstances which we cannot understand with our limited perspective here on earth.

"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be hindered."   Job 42:2