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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5157 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Oct 10th, 2006 06:29 pm |
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I would like to share a story with you of a breast cancer victim whose dying wish was to join the Catholic Church. By law, I cannot share personally identifiable information, so names have been changed.
I met Shirley while I was working as a hospice chaplain. By the time I met her, she had already told a nurse and an aide that she wanted to become Catholic. On my first visit, she told me within seconds of meeting her that she wanted to join the Church.
Over the next several weeks, I learned that Shirley had been married five times and had jumped from church to church. She had been baptized in a Baptist church, but attended mostly Catholic services as a child. She was currently living with a friend who was so terribly anti-Catholic that the Church couldn't be discussed in her house. We talked in the moments that her friend was out of the room but were unable to have a substantial discussion until she moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment with her sister and brother-in-law. She moved because she knew that was the only way her wish could come true. I contacted her priest, but he set the message aside and forgot about it.
She deteriorated rapidly at that point. The next time I saw her, on a Friday, she had revoked her hospice service and gone into the hospital to die. She was expected to pass away that night.
I helped her daughter show off her wedding dress and heard Shirley tell her daughter not to postpone the wedding, since it had already been postponed once when the groom's father died unexpectedly. I helped mother and daughter pick out Shirley's coffin. Shirley was fading in and out of consciousness. Her sister told me the priest had never contacted them, so I made an emergency call and arranged for him to come to the hospital immediately. He arrived about 20 minutes later.
He asked us all to leave the room and heard her confession, after which we went back into the room and he gave her absolution, led her in the Apostles' Creed and welcomed her into the Church, gave her Eucharist, and anointed her. She faded in and out of consciousness throughout the process, prolonging it so that it took nearly an hour. But once the anointing was complete, she remained conscious for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, a Saturday, she was doing so much better that she was able to walk down the hall. By Monday she was ready to go home. She was readmitted to our homebound hospice service and spent a week visiting with her daughter (they had never been close so this week gave them an opportunity to get to know each other). That Saturday she was feeling so well that her sister was able to take her to church in her wheelchair.
The priest recognized her. He brought her to the front of the church and introduced her to the congregation as their newest member, and the Church's newest Catholic. He had the entire congregation pray over her and he anointed her again. She was able to receive communion with the congregation for the very first time.
She returned home exhausted, and so her sister helped her into bed. She had kept a journal, so she picked up her journal and wrote of her experience of being "just another Catholic" and called it the happiest moment of her life. When she was finished making her journal entry, she closed the cover and put down her pen, and closed her eyes for the last time. She went into a coma and passed away within the hour with a smile on her face.
At her funeral, her daughter read her final journal entry. The priest called seeing her in church the most touching moment of his life. Her presence in church was a real miracle. God granted her dying wish by not only allowing her to become Catholic, but by allowing her to be Catholic at mass with the rest of the congregation. She never wanted any special treatment, only to be part of the congregation. There is no medical explanation of why she was able to leave the hospital, except that God gave her that gift.
She had led a very hard life, and as an adult had not lived in any one place long enough to join the Church. Since I was the only Catholic hospice chaplain in the area, God put me in place to help her, and he put a priest there who was willing to accept my word that she was eligible and ready to become Catholic.
Shirley will always hold a special place in my heart. I was blessed to meet her and doubly blessed to be part of her rebirth into eternity as "just another Catholic."
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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Talithacumi
Member
| Joined: | Sat Sep 30th, 2006 |
| Location: | Eastern Ohio, USA |
| Posts: | 261 |
| First Name: | Cheri | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Cradle Catholic - Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Oct 10th, 2006 08:52 pm |
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Rick,
What a beautiful story. It brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing it with us. 
JMJ
- Cheri
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“We do not want a Church that will move with the world; we want a Church that will move the world.”
- G.K. Chesterton
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