Tag Archives: The Rosary

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29 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Catholic Life, sleep

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It is early, 0331. I’ve been awake maybe an hour and a half. I have had the experience when I wake up, lie in bed a bit and sleep doesn’t return, so I “try” harder to sleep. What is that about? If I can “will” sleep, that would make me exceptional as a human. I am not equipped with an ON/OFF switch. None of us are.

I prayed the Rosary. Serenity crept back in. And my eyelids are a little heavier. I did some channel-surfing, and decided I didn’t need to see the same footage of the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front in the summer of 1941 that I had seen many, many times before. So I switched to watching for trains. Maybe a freight will pass through before I go back to bed..

I always have a sense of failure when the wake-ups and insomnia assert themselves. It is as if sleeping is my job. Sleeping is one of my few regular daily activities, along with eating.

Requiescat In Pace: Mike

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Catholic Life

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In my most recent post Alternative Healing, I mentioned I went to the Seven AM Daily Mass at Mary, Mother of the Church Abbey. I saw my friend Mike M, a local dentist and very active Catholic.  When I came in to the Church in 2010, he led our RCIA ( Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults) Class. After Mass we talked a bit. He told me he was praying The Rosary for a young man, who had just entered an alcoholism rehabilitation program.  He asked that I pray  The Rosary for this young man.  All in all, it was an unremarkable conversation with a man whose life is about service to God, His Church, and his fellow human beings.

Last night, I was checking my e-mails when one titled In Memoriam caught my eye. Expecting the deceased to be one of  several parishioners I knew to be in ill health, I was astonished to discover that Mike had died.  Driving down to the Evening Mass for Candlemas, he felt ill, pulled off the road and dialed 911. Taken to hospital he died of a massive heart attack, his aorta irreparably damaged.

The old cliches’ took over “You never know”. “He looked fine when I last saw him.”   You know them all. Mike was not quite 70.  He leaves a widow, two children, four grandchildren.  One of my most cherished memories of Mike was of  him leading his grandchildren in Grace before they ate their Happy Meals at McDonald’s one Sunday afternoon. He showed them how to make the Sign of the Cross before the Blessing started.

His life was about doing what matters.  We should all have such clarity and singleness of purpose.

May the souls of the Faithful Departed, especially Mike, by the Mercy of God, rest in Peace.

Alternative Healing

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Health Issues

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Having a spinal fusion is like rolling the dice. You might win. You might not. On balance I am satisfied with the outcome and would do it all over again. But.  There are days when my back hurts at the surgical site or near it.  I am too far post-op to get any opioids for pain. Naproxen, acetaminophen or ibuprofen work sometimes, but some days I think I could accomplish as much pain management with Tic-Tacs.

This morning, around 4:30, was one of those times. I was up for a while, went back to bed, still hurting. I said to myself, “Why don’t you pray The Rosary?”  So I did. The Glorious Mysteries. All five Decades. I then read part of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s The Three Conversions Of The Spiritual Life. It is a profound, little book, dense with observations about the devout life.

I won’t say the pain miraculously and dramatically departed, but it lessened in intensity. My self-absorption with the pain went away.  I went to the 7:00 AM Mass at Mary, Mother of the Church Abbey. Another crack in the facade of self-absorption.

I came home, finally sleepy. About the time I woke up, a fellow alcoholic, whom I didn’t know called. He needed a ride to a meeting. So we went. 

“Out of self, into others.” is one of those AA slogans, simple yet true.  I’ve spent the day living in the spirit of that slogan. I feel a lot better. Useful.