This morning I was sitting in a different place for my prayers and as a result went to the Laudate app to pray my rosary instead of using my beads. The Joyful mysteries popped up and even though I know Saturdays are normally for the Joyful mysteries, I felt a kind of resistance to praying them on the day when Jesus was still in the tomb. However, I felt Mary tell me that these were exactly the mysteries she was reflecting on when her Son was in the tomb: Finding out she would be pregnant with Jesus, visiting her cousin who was pregnant at the same time, His birth, His presentation and a moment of anxiety of losing Him. I found myself thinking of parents who have lost children and the days that followed and my own experience with losing loved ones.
My brother died when he was two years old. I was six almost seven at the time, and death became a reality for me. I vividly remember the first night back in our house without him. It wasn’t his absence that clued me into his death; it was my mother’s presence. You see he had been in the hospital for much of his life especially leading up to his death, and so the reality that he was not home and my mom was. It hit me like a freight train. We were all sleeping in his room that he shared with my other brother. I went to his crib and I cried. I don’t really remember what happened after that…if someone carried me back to bed, or if I slept there near the crib. I only remember looking at his teddy bear with the white sweater inside his crib and crying.
The months and years that followed were filled with moments of remembering him and things he did. He loved blueberries; he loved to dance to my records, he loved the beach….his blonde curls, his blue eyes…my son Leo has his name as a middle name and had both the blonde curls and blue eyes as a toddler.
And so this morning praying the Joyful mysteries, I thought of Mary, thinking about the angel coming to her, telling her she would carry the Messiah. Even though she knew what the Messiah would endure from prophecies, the sting of death felt no less. Arguably she felt it more profoundly because she knew He was God. She knew that the people condemning him to death were doing so unjustly and He still went freely, not stopping what He could stop. Her trust so profound that she knew this was not the end of the story.
But still I think she spent time on this day remembering and praying, and so I joined my prayers with hers, trying to remember like a mother who had lost her son—her memories, these mysteries of Christ’s life. I was also remembering many people in my life who have buried children. It feels so unjust. I like to think that any person who has had to bury a child is immediately taken to heaven because they have had to endure hell on earth. I don’t know if it’s true, but I know both God and Mary understand the torments of death and I believe in God’s great mercy and Mary’s too. Her will is always united to His. I imagine between them it’s near impossible to delay that reunion of parent and child, but I do not know for sure…it’s only what I think of God’s mercy. I believe the power of that mercy would draw the parent and child souls together immediately, much like Mary’s assumption. Her body could not even be contained to earth so that she could be reunited wholly with Jesus in heaven.
So as we anticipate the resurrection tomorrow, I am pondering with Mary those early years of Jesus’ life. I am also praying for all those who have lost children, who still feel the weight of an enclosed tomb. I am praying in anticipation of the profound joy you will experience in heaven when you hold your child again, and when we all meet God face-to-face. Unimaginable joy and light….that is what heaven is…that is what the resurrection is. I am thanking God that life does not end with death here on earth. I am thanking God for an eternity where I will see my brother again and have unending time together.
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