The Most Natural Burden

“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”  Exodus 20:12

I lost my two remaining grandparents last year.  There was nothing particularly dramatic or unexpected about their deaths.  They departed this life after extended struggles with disease and debility, looking ahead in hope.  They died holding the hands of their children.  

My mother and her siblings were alongside them through so much of the dramatic change, and it’s been moving for me to watch this from the sidelines.  For them it was a year of sitting in dozens of doctor’s offices, heating up dinner, writing out notes to guide confused minds, sorting the bills, arranging a last family picnic on a sunny July day.

Ponder: "song of the angels"

“Despite all our complaining, we love the Breviary. Our life has two principal gripes: one, the food in the seminary before we are ordained; and two, the breviary after we are ordained.  But we grow fat on the meals, and we advance in holiness with the breviary.  We expect too much from it at first, as does a bride of her groom. But once we realize that when we pick up the book we are not mockingbirds singing for ourselves alone, that our melody is, rather, the song of the angels rising to the throne of God on behalf of the Mystical Body and the world, it becomes easier.”

Fulton Sheen, The Priest is Not His Own (1963), 145-6.