It's Never Too Late

Every now and then we see the goodness and love of God made manifest through someone we know and love.

 

As Catholics, we are taught that we must seek eternal happiness in this life, and this life alone, or lose it forever once we have died.

 

And as Catholics, we are also taught that in this life there will be the suffering, or the cross to bear, but if we bear it with patience and in union with God and His Church, again, we have the expectation that we will be in heaven one day after we die.

For the past 11 years, my mom's brother suffered with cancer. I didn't realize how much until the other day when I talked to my aunt on the phone after my uncle passed away.

 

A lot of people might call our suffering our purgatory on earth. Many of the great saints chose to have purgatory on earth and suffered a lot for their fellow mankind out of love for God and all He has done for us.

 

It's safe to say that my uncle, Doug, suffered a lot, but maybe not necessarily for his fellow mankind, but because that's the way it was. Doug didn't know anything about the Catholic Church or what any of these things mean. When my mother was alive, who also died from cancer, she showed Doug some things about the Catholic Church, but how much she told him, we don't know.

 

Last Friday I got a call from my sister that Doug had succumbed to cancer. It wasn't a big surprise given the events of the week. His final months and days were horrible after he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He lost his voice, and he had to live with a tracheotomy in at all times because his airway was being compromised by the cancer. . 

 

A week ago Monday he began to hemorrhage from some unknown source. The blood and clots were coming up through his throat and it wasn't small amounts, but huge amounts and it continued on and on for the next few days. The doctors couldn't figure out where it was coming from. After 104 radiation treatments, they figured out that it was probably coming from a hole in the esophagus itself, which they plugged. It helped, but it wasn't enough help. They were preparing to do surgery on him, but because of the rapid blood loss, it would have probably ended his life. As it was, his life ended anyway.

 

Before he died, and I don't know how long he had been thinking of becoming Catholic, he asked for a priest. His wife, Dixie, was trying to prepare Doug for his final passage into eternity as best she knew how. But the lingering question on Doug's mind was "yes I'm going to die, I'm not afraid to die, but where will I be after I die?" So, because of my mom's faith and what she had been through when she was ill, a priest was called. He was given the sacraments of the Church for the first and last time, and  soon after all of it, he died in blissful peace.

 

My grandparents had not raised mom and Doug in any kind of religion. If anything, they were given an idea of born again Christianity, but in the long run, it turned off my grandparents. When my mother and father were married, my mom converted to Catholicism because that is how things were done then. But it was still her choice to do so.

 

But Doug didn't have an opportunity like that. At age 18 he enlisted in the navy and made it a career. He married a wonderful woman who was the love of his life and he was hers. After his retirement he worked at Lockheed for another 20 or so years, before retiring, and moving back near where he grew up.

 

When my sister told me that Doug had been baptized and received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, I lost it and began sobbing. I couldn't believe that a prayer I had silently prayed just the night before and, actually, throughout his illness, had come true. He died full of grace, something all of us pray for, but something a lot of us will not have. 

Rest in Peace Uncle Doug



He is now in eternal happiness and I believe, with my mother and grandparents and with them as our intercessors, my family should be in good shape. Hopefully they are praying for my three siblings and daughter, now away from the Church, to one day again be reunited and in full communion with the Church. This prayer answered brings me new hope and awareness that God is listening and He will answer it when it is His time. Our job, as Catholic Christians, is to pray for our families - all of them - Catholic and non-Catholic alike, and persevere in prayer our entire life.

 

I am thankful that I was raised Catholic. I was blessed with two wonderful parents, three siblings, a good husband, a daughter I adore and three special grandchildren. I only hope that when my time comes that I will have one last prayer answered before I die. And that is, to receive the last and final sacrament of the Holy Catholic Church for my journey home. I pray that prayer for all of us.

So, the moral of this story is this: it's never ever too late to turn to God or back to God in this life. It is too late in the next. It is in this life we must make our decision that only we can make. To follow God and His laws or not, as taught through His Holy and Immaculate Catholic Church. What will your decision be?