Your Love is upon us Lord, even as we hope in you...

John 14:1-12 & Psalm 116:10-15
                                          
I would like to trace the Grace that I experienced this last Sunday morning.  Riding waves of grief for the past week, I arose as I often do to pray around 3:30 in the morning. My mother, in her 90th year was laboring to breathe her soul to birth from her body that was so weakened by cancer and other age-related maladies.  By grace, My sister and my brother (a priest) and I had been allowed one by one to watch at her bedside in a retirement home that was otherwise shut down by the pandemic.  By ‘happy accident’ the reading was Psalm 116:10-15 and the Psalm prayer that goes with it in the breviary (see the full text below). Could it be, I wondered, that the soul of my faithful mother would go to be with the Lord today? I checked my phone. Indeed, my mother had died at 3:00 am, at the beginning of the Hour of Mercy – on Mother’s Day, that day when we remember all mothers, during the month of our Blessed Mother, Mary.  The Psalm for Sunday’s Mass, Psalm 33, was a fitting response to this great grace of God.  “Let your love be upon us, Lord, even as we hope in you. Rejoice in the Lord ...” And the Gospel for the day? Jesus’ discourse to his disciples about death: Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes)...” Surely a loving Father, by the ministry of Christ incarnate, had touched my life, our lives with profound mercy.  Thank you for allowing me to trace this grace for you.
 
We put our hope in the Lord; he is our protector and our help. We are glad because of him. We trust in his name.   (Psalm 33:20-21)
 
Precious in your sight is the death of your faithful ones, but precious above all is the love with which Christ suffered to redeem us.  In this life we fill up in our own flesh the completion of the sufferings of Christ; accept this as our sacrifice of praise, and we shall even now taste the joy your dwelling place.
Psalm Prayer for Pslam 116: 10-19, Sunday evening prayer, Week II, Shorter Christian Prayer
 
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Soli ad gloriam Dei