The Purple Flower and the Art of Letting Go

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The Purple Flower and the Art of Letting Go

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” — Matthew 6:33–34

My mother didn’t just read those words. She lived her life practicing them. Today, I’ll share with you my mother’s lifelong surrender to God’s will and what she taught me about waiting and trusting.

One afternoon, sitting with her in the den, I noticed her staring at me. When I started to speak, she laughed and said, “I can’t help looking at your face—it looks like you have a purple flower on your nose.” I checked the mirror for a smudge, found nothing, and came back laughing. “That’s a good title for a poem or something,” I told her. “I’m going to write about that one day.”

I kept that promise. Purple Flower on My Nose is the story of the twenty-six days my sister and I moved back home to care for our mother, Violet, during home hospice—but really, it is the story of a lifetime of holy surrender and what it taught me about trusting God’s will when nothing makes sense.

My mother had a feeding tube for over thirty years. She could drink liquids that moved under gravity, but never could eat food. She traveled to Lourdes in the hope of finding a cure. Instead, she came home saying Jesus had told her the feeding tube was His gift to her. And she accepted it — never grumbling while the rest of us enjoyed our meals, never asking why. In the hospital, near the end, she said simply, “Jesus suffered for me. I can suffer for Him.”

That is what surrender looked like to her: not defeat, not resignation, but friendship with God so deep that even suffering became something to offer back to Him. When anyone admired her faith and positive attitude, she would wave it off: “It’s not me, it’s the Lord in me.”

My own surrender came harder. During those home hospice days, I wrote in my journal through tears: I believe, I trust—I just don’t understand or know, and so I wait. This limbo is a mystery, but Jesus, I do trust in you. I learned that trust is not the absence of questions. It is choosing to wait on God, even when questions remain unanswered.

And here is the surprising truth: surrender did not make those days grim. It made them holy—and even joyful. My mother told us, “You have to laugh even when you are dying,” and we did. Amidst the heavy sorrow of anticipation, my sisters and I laughed with her. In her final days, drinking tea from a dropper, she whispered, “I am so happy.”

Happy. Dying, and happy. That is the fruit of her life spent seeking first the kingdom—and she did so in her child-like, trusting faith.

If you are in your own season of waiting—a diagnosis, a loss, a limbo you didn’t choose—please know that surrender is not giving up. It is going through even when you don’t understand. It is trusting that the One who sees tomorrow loves you enough to sustain and hold you through today.

My mother’s name was Violet. The purple flower she saw on my nose was, I think, her way of leaving herself with me. This is me, writing about it—just as I promised her I would one day.

Copyright 2026 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Picture credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Cairns Along the Way

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As you read this, chances are I’m hiking somewhere above 10,000 feet in southwest Colorado, where we have a family vacation home. While Katie shows her love for us by staying at the house with our dogs, we’re enjoying two weeks at our cabin. As much as I love the water and never want to live away from the Chesapeake Bay, I look forward to these two weeks all year. It’s here in the mountains where my soul feels refreshed and renewed. It’s where I’ve learned some important lessons about life, particularly about the markers God and others leave for us along our journey.

Anyone who follows me knows I’m a big walker. I typically walk five miles a day and am training for Camino number three. Out here, I could walk for days, breathing in the fresh, clean air and tilting my face toward the sky, feeling as though Heaven is just beyond the reach of my fingertips.

 

Finding Markers

As a hiker, I’m always on the lookout for cairns. These are human-made piles or stacks of stones used as markers along a trail. They mark hidden trails, safe passages, memorials, historic events, and even burial places. Hikers will leave them as a testament that they were there, usually on a high peak or a remote trail. They’re a common sight throughout the Rockies and along the Camino, as well as other famous and not-so-famous trails around the world.

Perhaps it’s in my biology to be pulled toward these monuments. After all, they’re a Scottish tradition, and despite my married name, I have Highland blood flowing through my veins. Maybe it’s because I’m a walker and hiker and feel a kinship to those who have walked before me. But I believe it’s something even deeper than that. Even if I had never ventured further than my front door, I believe I would be looking for cairns. Each of us has a life journey full of cairns just waiting to be discovered.

 

Finding Answers

When I met my husband and he told me he was a waterman, I have no doubt that was a cairn (see my last blog). I’m certain my grandfather laid the foundation stone to that one.

When my grandmother passed, I was a mess, but she sent me a cairn I’ll never forget. I was on my way to school to pick up my girls just after I got the call, and Vince Gill’s voice floated through my car speakers. Vince was my grandmother’s favorite singer, and I’d taken her to see him in concert only a few years prior. I know this was more than just a song on the radio, though, as Vince consoled my heart with as he sang “Go Rest High on the Mountain,” about a loved one who goes home to God.

The first time I laid my eyes on the Sea of Galilee, I knew that pilgrimage was changing my life, and it did. Standing on Mount Precipice next to a cairn marking the Gospel Trail, I felt at peace and at home.

 

 

 

Finding Meaning

As I look back at the past fifty-six years, I see many cairns I’ve encountered along the way. Some led me down hidden trails I never thought I would go. Some afforded me safe passage when my world had been shaken. Others have served as memorials and symbols, reminders to where I’ve been, where I am, and where I need to go.

Wherever we go, our family seeks cairns already built and leaves cairns behind, to mark where we’ve been and lead others where they need to go. Much like life itself, some of these are mounds we’ve piled ourselves, and others are stacks we’ve contributed to along the way. Some are too high to reach and require a leap of faith. Others are small and easily overlooked unless we’re looking for them.

These all have become somewhat of a symbol for me in life, a tie to the trails I’ve walked and the lifelong journey I’m making toward my final destination.

 

Finding Joy

I always advise hikers to keep an eye out for the cairns that pop up along the way. You’re not alone in this journey. Those who have gone before you often leave signs for you to follow, pieces of stone to ground you, and markers to help you find your way. We would all be lost without these precious cairns that typically show up when least expected but most needed, bringing us reassurance and even happiness. Follow your cairns, and your journey will be one of peace and joy.

Copyright 2026 Amy Schisler

Photos copyright 2026 Amy Schisler, all rights reserved.

It’s Not Me, It’s the Lord in Me

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It’s Not Me, It’s the Lord in Me

As my mother lay in the hospital just weeks before she left us, my sisters and I faced the reality that an undetected brain tumor had been causing her symptoms for the last five years. 

It was a heartbreaking moment for all of us as we realized the culprit behind her years of struggle, and perhaps some guilt at not knowing the cause of her underlying issue. Not that we hadn’t taken her to numerous specialists (besides the ones she already had for her heart, eyes, and paralyzed digestive system), trying to figure out why she had head pain, “not headaches,” and had gradually begun hallucinating along with a myriad other daily disturbances.

The nursing staff loved visiting with my mother while she was there. Despite her pain, issues with her feeding tube (a constant companion for the previous 30 years), and pervasive arthritis, she always had a smile and kind words for all who came to her bedside. When they marveled at what an inspiration she was, she quickly quipped back, “It’s not me, it’s the Lord in me.”

Next to the Lord, her family, and her friends, tea was her great love.

Every day that I can remember, my mother would begin her morning with a cup of tea in bed, reading from a small meditation book at her bedside. After, she would walk to the dining room den area to her little altar with a small Pietà statue, a rosebud vase, and a small crucifix, all resting on a shelf beneath the large Sacred Heart image with a family dedication inscribed at the bottom. Then she would have another cup of tea and sit in her special chair to read more daily meditation books. Whenever I spent a few weeks visiting with her, I would read the meditations out loud, and we’d spend time and another “cuppa” tea talking about the readings.

This morning ritual with Jesus, my mother’s friend, was one that sustained her when she was no longer able to drive and go to daily Mass. It was what made her acutely attuned to the Lord that she could so easily credit her faith-filled disposition and let the words roll off her tongue: “It’s not me, it’s the Lord in me.”

I wrote this poem in honor of and in memory of my mother.

 

Embracing Tea

Dreamt of her — 

 

Clear as the steaming Earl Grey

I sip from her bequeathed 

“Keep Calm and Drink Tea” mug.

 

Bright as the sun

beaming through her bay window,

vintage Queen Elizabeth plates on the wall.

 

Crisp as her London lilt.

Firm as her mother’s hug.

 

I saw her —

 

Years before home hospice,

before her hands could no longer clasp a cup,

before her skeletal shape slipped away,

 

in the youth of her 80s —

face crinkled with laughter

as she made tea for me.

 

Copyright 2026 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Photo credit: Author’s family album

Miles and Milestones

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I’m sitting at a hotel lobby waiting for my Uber, and there’s this boy speaking loudly, saying his name over and over, with some other sounds, and his mother is shushing him. It brought me back to a night in Mexico when I was sitting at a park bench. Kids play late in Mexico, like there is no school the next day. Our children were playing together, and she asked how old my son was. I told her, and she got teary-eyed. She said her son was roughly the same age, but that she thought he was autistic. Quietly, she had been comparing their developmental milestones. What could I say? What word of encouragement could I offer this woman? 

“Don’t worry,” I said, “Your son is going to live a happy life.” I don’t know why I spoke like a prophet. I guess I wanted to speak it into existence, to give her hope and peace of mind for her son’s future. The woman loved her son dearly, I could tell by how patient she was with him, how she let him run freely and bravely on the soccer pitch even with the drop off, and how she rushed to him when he was too close to danger. She let him test his boundaries.

It made me think of a short story I once read with my sixth-grade students, called Raymond’s Run by Toni Cade Bambara. The story starts with a spunky girl from Harlem named Squeaky introducing herself and her main job in the family: taking care of her special needs brother, Raymond. Throughout the story, Squeaky is preparing for a race and has her brother tagging along as she travels through her neighborhood, stretching, doing breathing exercises, and even confronting her challenger, Gretchen, and her friends, who try to tease her brother. On the day of the big race, Squeaky notices how her brother mimics her: “bending down with his fingers on the ground,” getting in place. At first, she wants to yell at him, to correct him, but realizes it would waste too much energy before the race. She takes off and sees Raymond running beside her along the fence, “in his own way,” and thinks that he is a mighty fine runner. At the end, she doesn’t know if she won because of the commotion, but that doesn’t matter anymore; she starts to think of training Raymond. She believes he could carry on the family tradition, since their father is a runner, too. She realizes all her medals and ribbons don’t amount to anything if Raymond could win his own medal. 

Like the mother in the lobby who shushes her child, or Squeaky who first wants to yell at her brother when he sets in place for the run, we can box people into how we think they should behave. Or literally put them in a baby swing to stay put, like Squeaky did to Raymond, so she could run her race. But Raymond got out; the story never says how, and suddenly he is running along the fence, beside her. 

When I step outside to meet the Uber, the boy passes me, now holding his dad’s hand. He is smiling, looking up at the sky. It’s his dad’s love that speaks to me now. I watch him walking alongside his father, and I don’t worry about him or his future because he is loved. 

I guess that is what I was trying to say to that mother in the park. To tell her that her love was bigger than a baby swing and wider than a soccer pitch. That it had the power to travel past miles and milestones to where I am now, pulling me into her story and toward the frustrated mother across the room, running beside me in its own way.  

 

copyright 2026 Janet Tamez

What Does Love Look Like Across Cultures?

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What Does Love Look Like Across Cultures?

Journeys have been on my mind a lot lately. Over the last few years, my daughter and son have enabled me to travel across two different oceans, taking me to places that are my roots. 

But I have been thinking not just about these literal trips. This year, what’s been on my mind is the inner journey I have been exploring—with my writing and my spiritual paths. Traveling these roads has taken a lifetime, and I view them as continuous journeys toward peace, faith, belonging, and the ultimate Love that is God.

My own journey has taken some unexpected routes.

I grew up exposed to different worlds—a girl from England with an accent nobody in Pensacola quite understood, the daughter of a Filipino father who crossed an ocean because of a nursery rhyme about London Bridge, and an English mother who became Catholic as a wartime evacuee and never looked back. When I got married, I was immersed in yet another world: an Iranian family whose generosity and warmth humbled me daily. My sister-in-law Goltala—whose name means “flower of God”—rose before sunrise every Saturday to bake bread for our family. She came to Mass every Sunday because she wanted to go to “God’s house.” All these cultures have shaped me as I travel the map of my life.

I discovered over my years of writing and in the communities I have belonged to—poetry groups, my Catholic parish, the Catholic Writers Guild—that the deepest experiences of hope and love are found in people of every culture. What I write is informed by living in worlds from East to West and in between.

Not from any one culture, one tradition, one zip code.

Many.

Those learning experiences surface everywhere. In Goltala’s bread dough. In my grandfather’s rhyming letters from England. In my young child, pointing at the light through a smoky barbecue chimney and whispering, “Look, Mama, it’s God.”

That is what my books in the Everywhere… series are trying to do—honor cultural differences, not just of place, but of beliefs, and show how love travels like a highway that passes through many landscapes before reaching home.

Everywhere Hope, my first book, began with a poem I wrote when I was eight years old. It grew into a collection of personal essays, poetry, and Scripture—a cross-cultural spiritual journey that our beloved retired Bishop of St. Augustine once described as “a genius of feminine perception embedded in an unusual multicultural integration.” I am still amazed (but not surprised because he is so kind) at those words he wrote.

Now, Everywhere Love is nearly complete. It follows the same road but deeper, into the nature of love itself: how we first receive it, how we give it, how we lose and rebuild it, and how, if we are paying attention, we begin to recognize God’s Divine Hand in ordinary and not-so-ordinary moments.

As all of my fellow CWG community members do, I write from a Catholic faith perspective, but I have always believed that love and the longing for God are not limited to any one tradition. I believe St. Augustine’s famous quote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” speaks to every human being. My highway to Love has been traveled by many people of varied faiths and backgrounds, and each of them has taught me something along the way. What does love look like across cultures? In my view, it’s the same: “God is love…”—1 John 4:8

If you are on a journey of your own—whether it feels like I-10 smooth and boring, or a pothole-riddled detour like those I found in the Philippines—I hope something in the pages of my new book meets you where you are.

Copyright 2026 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Photo Credit:barneyelo/Pixabay

Last Minute Gifts

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Last Minute Gifts

by Paula Veloso Babadi

I am sure you have heard stories of faithful Catholics who have experienced the sweetness of our Spiritual Mother’s presence. I grew up in a family that said the Rosary almost every evening, with parents who were devoted to Mary. Still, as I left home for college and later started my own family, unlike my parents and sisters, I did not keep up that tradition. It took a while on my spiritual journey to understand how much Our Lady loves us and how eager she is to give us gifts that bring us closer to her Son.

Over thirty years ago, when one of my sisters relayed that she was going to Conyers, Georgia, where a housewife, Nancy Fowler, was reportedly receiving messages from Our Lady, she suggested it was not too late to meet up there with the rest of my family. I didn’t think it would be possible to get time off so quickly, but miraculously, I was granted vacation days and rushed home to prepare for the almost 350-mile trip. I wondered how on Earth I would find a place to stay or my family in a crowd of thousands. It was the days before GPS and cell phones.

“A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”—Revelations 12:1

People flocked to Conyers to witness the wonders occurring there, and after what seemed like an eternity of “No Vacancy” signs, I found a place to stay the night. The next day, miraculously again, I found my parents and two sisters amid a sea of people gathered in a muddy field. With oohs and aahs, the crowd was taken in by the sun playing in the sky and a blue light bearing the resemblance of the Blessed Mother’s outline hovering among nearby trees—except me. I didn’t see what my family and everyone else seemed to have seen. How could I have missed it? Am I too skeptical?

“Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’”—Matthew 17:19–21

When the Rosary and other prayers finished, and people started joyously leaving the field, I was downtrodden. We approached the small farmhouse where Nancy Fowler had been kneeling inside, and I lingered as my parents and sisters moved ahead toward the parking area.

“I believe you were here, Mary, but I’m sad, I didn’t see your signs,” I said. “Please let me experience your presence.” People walked by, and with each one who passed me, I could smell perfume.  I finally stopped one young woman: “Are you wearing perfume?”

“No.” 

The scent continued; it was the sweet smell of roses, just like the heirlooms in my father’s garden.  

I ran to catch up with my parents.  “Did you smell roses when you walked by the farmhouse?”

“No.”

I broke down crying and told them what happened, at which they hugged me and said Our Lady had given me a gift.  Our Blessed Mother is ready to carry us closer to her Divine Son and to protect and console us in troubled times. 

When I arrived in Conyers, I was mildly doubtful, slightly hopeful after seeing the crowds in awe, and overcome with gratitude when I received such consolation at the slightest movement toward belief. People far more devout than I can attest to the beauty of devotion to Mary and the fruits of dedication to daily Rosaries.

Over the years, I became more mindful of praying the Rosary, but I wasn’t consistent.  As I remembered that gift so many years ago, just before Lent, I am committing to say the Rosary every day, just as we did when I was a child.

Copyright 2026 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Photo by ClickerHappy-3678 at Pexels

Divine Calm in Life’s Storms

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We encounter many kinds of storms as we journey through this world. For some, they are more destructive than for others. We naturally react with fear, and worry, and anger over why it must be this way. God knows we are passing through a fallen world, and He asks us to try and see things as He does, or to trust that He is in control and will guide us all the way.

As a psychotherapist, I work with clients who live in nursing homes. An elderly man, whom I will call Alex, recently said to me, “I grew up in a household of abuse, and I learned how to find peace as a result.”

Alex spoke of sustained years of physical abuse by his mother towards him, and to a lesser extent toward his younger brother. Alex learned over time to recognize how his mother was ill and wounded, that her battle was an inner one, and not truly aimed at or caused by him. With a series of questions and comments, I sought to deepen the exploration of how he had arrived at such a penetrating understanding.

“For a period of five years when I was growing up,” Alex said, “we had many soldiers who were returning from WWII stay with us at our house. They were each going to study at a Catholic seminary in Boston so they could become priests. Each one of them had seen battle and many horrors, and now each one of them wanted to serve God and serve others.”

“They could see that my mother was not in control of herself, and they would make it a point to take me and my brother out for walks. They would talk to us about the things they had seen and learned in battle.”

“I knew my mother was also in a battle and it was not really about me,” he continued. “I was a kind of collateral damage of her own damage.”

“I think that they helped me to see that I could find peace in myself even if I was in the midst of a battle. I mean, I don’t think that was what they meant, or what they were trying to say. They were just trying to get on with their lives, you know.”

“What I really believe is that God had touched me and sent me these soldiers to help me learn. They made such a difference for me.”

Alex offered examples of how he had been able to stay calm and avoid conflicts with peers in his adolescence, and also when he served in the Army.  Time and again others seemed annoyed, as well as mystified, by his peacefulness. “I think I was given a touch of the Divine, and I think that helped me to connect with a bit of that ‘peace that exceeds understanding,’ as it says in the Bible.” (1)

Over many years, I have worked with a great number of clients who have endured, or who are now enduring, the most severe types of life storms: disease, disfigurement, disability, abuse, abandonment, and countless disappointments, all dripping like raindrops from the branches of a barren and lonely tree.

Innumerable times, I have asked clients undergoing severe storms, “How do you survive? How do you cope?” More than ninety percent of the time, the person points an index finger upwards and says, “God.”

The providence of God surrounds all of the battles and storms of life, and He has placed a “touch of the Divine” in the deepest recess of our heart. We don’t reach that inner calm through the practice of human techniques, but by keeping our heart open even while caught in a storm, so that He might shelter and guide us, in His way. When a new storm intrudes into our life, we might wrongly assume it will now always be this way. But even though storms will arrive, they will also pass away, or we might simply find adequate bits of shelter and moments of peace to help us manage.

(1) “Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do
not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and pleading with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 4: 5-7)

Passing Gloom

Rain clouds rush in,
racing crowds from afar,
a meteor isobar.
Sky ripped wide with spears of fire.
Frightened eyes steal a secret peek,
To see who makes this darkness dire.

A towering titan appears to loom over startled rooms.
Drums of doom and fractured light
Send birds away in frightened flight.

Gone as quick as came,
The world outside seems the same.
Darkness breaks apart,
Bright sparkles everywhere dart.

Fragrant breezes flower with verdant bloom.
Gripped fears ease, dispelling passing gloom.

copyright 2026 Tom Medlar

A snowy forest where a dog stops to look back at its own tracks where birds are grazing.

Powering Down and Listening Up

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Nature imparts the most beautiful noise to lull us into sweet silence. A leaf gently falling through branches to land softly among other leaves. The crunch of sparkly snow under a footfall. The snoring of your dog, curled up in his bed, during an afternoon nap. The early coo of the Mourning Dove and unexpected “chip, chip, chip” of a Cardinal all soften the edges of daily noise.

It’s the ugly noise we all want to escape: the sirens, the gossip, the nagging of bosses, the tattling of employees, the earsplitting horn of the driver behind you, the whining of children you don’t even know, the cursing for reasons that have nothing to do with you, the unceasingly shrill blabbing from all types of media … on it continues like demons on both shoulders yapping into your ears.

You just want to hear the silence. You just want to hear God’s voice.

Mother Teresa said, “God is the friend of silence.”¹ “We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness,”¹ she said.

If we spend all year wondering why God doesn’t answer our questions with clear direction and guidance, why do we expect to hear it during Lent by attempting to give up a vice and meat on Fridays? We don’t hear God not because He isn’t speaking to us, but because we can’t hear Him in the noise. Simply being in Lent isn’t going to cut it.

How can we overcome the noise and the restlessness to get to the point of hearing God speaking to us?

The desert mothers, ascetics of the early centuries, wrote and spoke of the value and necessity of silence and understood very well the demons that impede the goal. We have many steps to take to achieve the sweetness of silence. “Desert spirituality understood that the inner journey was one of warfare. Any weapon might be used against the seeker.”²

Know your demons.

We are all fighting demons. For some it’s substance abuse. For some, it’s dependence on others. Some need to shop  or be the center of attention. Others live in some kind of fear. That cold bottle of soda with its refreshing bubbles can be mighty stress-relieving during tense moments. Regardless, we are all fighting a greater fight.

Stop being the noise.

Unless you are in court, you don’t need to defend yourself. If you are in court, you pay lawyers to do so. Amma Theodora, a desert mother said, “A devout person happened to be insulted by someone, and replied, ‘I could say as much to you, but the commandment of God keeps my mouth shut.'” ² Do you need to contribute to every discussion? When a smile and nod will suffice, don’t add anything more.

Find the rhythm.

Have you ever fallen asleep to a loud movie? It isn’t necessarily because you’re so tired you can sleep through anything. Your body, on some level, has found the rhythm of the movie that the director created through the actors’ cadence, storyline flow, sound effects, and other nuances. Did the commercials wake you? They have disturbed the movie’s rhythm for you. Comforting sounds don’t come just from nature. Our bodies attune to a familiar pattern. We don’t hear the hum of a computer or the refrigerator’s motor until it stops or changes its sound. We turn on the fan in the summer, not just to keep us cool, but because its continuous whirring makes for a soothing composition. Lent comes early this year. Ash Wednesday falls on February 19 (Easter is April 5.)  Begin now. Practice filtering out the noise and finding the rhythm that moves us into silence and hearing God’s voice.

1. Hetzel, Whitney, “Why Silence Should Be Your Priority This Lent.” Good Catholic
(blog). Last modified January 14, 2025. https://www.goodcatholic.com/why-silence-should-be-your-priority-this-lent/.

2. Laura Swan, The Forgotten Dessert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of
Early Christian Women. (New York/Mahway, NJ: Paulist Press, 2001), 48, 66.

Feature AI Image Created in Adobe Firefly by Mary McWilliams

© Copyright 2026 by Mary McWilliams

Edited by Rietta Parker

The Shepherd’s Pie: The Gift of Giving

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The Shepherd’s Pie: The Gift of Giving

“A slice of hope to raise faithful kids.”

This uplifting, ecumenical show uses engaging conversations and fun entertainment reviews to offer positive insights and media resources for families and youth leaders. We discuss current issues that impact young people at home, in school, and in the world today.

In this episode of The Shepherd’s Pie, Antony Barone Kolenc speaks with Sheila Cronin about the importance of giving gifts, especially during
the upcoming holiday season, and we discuss her novel, The Gift Counselor.

 

 

Check out other episodes of The Shepherd’s Pie.

 

Copyright 2025 Antony Barone Kolenc

From Grief Through Mourning

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Last year, I could not do it. This year I did.

In the Catholic Church, the month of November begins with two consecutive liturgies that honor our beloved dead, The Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls.

We always hope that departed family members and friends might be celebrating the first feast with us, already among the saints in heaven. We trust that our prayers will help to console and sustain any loved ones who might, this year, still remain in purgatory.

It takes most people a long time to establish their ‘new normal’ after a family member’s or close friend’s death.

In my parish, one of these opportunities is a Mass of Remembrance offered each year on the Saturday morning before All Saints Day. A candle is provided for each family to place around the altar when their loved one’s name is proclaimed, and these candles are lit for each mass through the month of November

Last year, the 2024 Mass of Remembrance was scheduled just ten days after my husband’s funeral. With a sincere intention, I had placed his name on the list.

But when that Saturday morning arrived, I found myself still too exhausted from his sudden, unexpected death, the need to transport his remains from another state, and managing to stay functional — with help from close family and friends — for the funeral.

Last year, another dear friend stepped up to carry Charles’ Mass of Remembrance candle for me. This year I was able to carry it myself.

***

Beyond Catholic parishes’ roles in helping to organize funeral liturgies and hospitality, many also offer valuable longer-term support options, to help families survive devastating grief and manage the psychological challenges that always accompany any great loss.

We are all unique creations of God, and every person’s grief process is unique. So, I want to briefly share two more long-term support options offered by the grief ministry in my parish.

What has served me best might not be right for you. Likewise, parts of these programs that did not most resonate with me, might be just right for you.

I include them here because I believe they offer a range of valuable options to meet a variety of needs for different mourners.

The first is a year-long series of booklets, +/- 40 pp. each, written by Kenneth C. Hauck and published by Stephen Ministries in 2004. Entitled  A Time to Grieve, Experiencing Grief, Finding Hope and Healing, and Rebuilding and Remembering. These were mailed to me quarterly after my late husband’s funeral, as gifts from my parish.

Because I am an introverted person who normally reads and writes alone, I appreciated the freedom to digest these words of wisdom privately, and on my own schedule. The quarterly mailing time frame felt just right, too.

For those who feel more enthusiastic than I do about watching videos and participating in weekly discussion groups, another excellent support option offered by my parish is titled Grieving with Great Hope.

Meditation Journal written by John O’Shaughnessy, Sandy O’Shaughnessy, and Fr. John Riccardo,
part of the Grieving with Great Hope parish program, published by Good Mourning Ministry, Inc.

This program includes a series of videos, and small discussion groups with fellow mourners from your own parish. Ordinarily, those who join this program are in closely similar time periods after a loss.

The program includes a journal published by John and Sandy O’Shaughnessy, with Contributing Writer Fr. John Riccardo, as part of Good Mourning Ministry, Inc.

Of the resources offered by this ministry, I’ve personally found silent meditation and private writing, with the suggested journal

reflections, to be the most helpful. But I have also witnessed the benefits gleaned by others, from watching the videos and participating in discussion groups.

***

At the Mass of Remembrance on October 25, 2025, my deceased husband’s date of passing was the longest elapsed. I had been prepared beforehand, by our deacon’s gentle and compassionate wife, to hear his name called first and to face the empty altar alone.

As I bowed before the altar I tried to discern, among all the candle holders so lovingly arranged, where might be Charles’ place. The Holy Spirit led me to a place on the side by my accustomed pew, when I sing with the funeral choir, near the altar and close under the crucifix.

While a total of almost forty names were called, I prayed for each soul, and watched each family approach the deacon to receive their candles.

Charles’ light had to hold his mountain alone, for a long time. I began to wonder, who will God send, to occupy that spot beside him?

About three-quarters of the way through the list, I heard the name of a dear friend, mentor, and fellow funeral choir member. She and her late husband had coordinated our county-wide nursing home citizen-visitor ministry throughout their long retirement years. I had been a part of that ministry.

I watched Janet’s four children — none of whom I had ever met — come up to receive their candle, and bow. I could feel them doing their own discernment.

When they came over, to place Janet’s candle next to Charles, I could almost hear her saying, “Don’t worry, Margaret. I’ll look after him myself.”

***

Wherever any of you may be in your own grief journeys, no matter who you might be mourning this November, please know that I am

Author meditating on the candles, after Mass of Remembrance at St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church, Des Moines, Iowa, October 25, 2025.

praying for you.

I ask your continuing prayers for me, too.

This will be my last CWG column for a while. I need a brief sabbatical; to continue dealing with the massive changes I’ve experienced

over the past fourteen months, and to discern where my own ‘new normal’ life will lead.

May the compassion of Our Lord’s most Sacred Heart, the love of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit remain with you, as well.

Blessings, always,

Margaret

 

 

 

 

© Copyright 2025  by Margaret King Zacharias

All photos from author’s personal collection; used with permission by the author

Featured photo: Candles lit for Mass of Remembrance, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish, Des Moines, Iowa, on
October 25, 2025. Author’s personal photo, published with permission.

 

 

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