Now You Will Be My Mother

I'd like to share a little story. I don't know if it means anything, but I also know how God tends to work. So if I may...

Last weekend we were at the beach and Deb and I went to Mass at St. Jude's in Lewes Sunday morning. We were early, so we sat in one of the front rows. When we sat down, I noticed a small silver medal on a chain left on the pew. I recognized that it was a Miraculous Medal, because I have one that I keep on my keychain. 

Deb picked it up by the chain and looked at it. Not really thinking, I told her "You take that. It was left for you."

"But what if someone comes back for it?" she asked.

"It was left for you."

We came back from the beach Monday evening and settled in to the week. Tuesday we got a call from Deb's dad that her mom was complaining of severe head pain, and was taken to the hospital. On Thursday, she slipped into a coma. We were able to gather the family around her, pray over her, read the scriptures, and have her receive Last Rites before she passed that evening.

During her final hours Deb remembered the medal in her purse and kept it close to her. The story of St. Catherine, who experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary and commissioned the medal, is one I knew about but wanted to revisit. It struck me when I read the following from her life story:

"Early one morning shortly after her mother's death, a family servant came silently upon the little one standing on her tiptoes, stretching upwards, impelled by love, until she reached the statue of the Blessed Virgin. As she held the statue in her arms and leaned her head against the Madonna, the servant heard the child say, "Now, dear Blessed Mother, now you will be my Mother!"

It's been a hard week for all of our family. But throughout my days I am struck by God's gracious mercy, his mysterious ways, and find myself spontaneously offering him thanks and praise for what I don't understand. God is so good. He loves us so much. He has given us everything we need, all the graces necessary as a free gift through the sacrifice of his only begotten Son, to be with him forever in Heaven when we die. We get comfortable sometimes and forget that this is not our final home.

Maybe it was a coincidence, the finding of this medal in the pew. Maybe it means very little on the surface, a minor thing. The night her mom passed, Deb put on the medal and now wears it around her neck.  I also took mine off my keychain and wear it around my neck. A small comfort, perhaps. But a reminder, from one child who lost her mother to another, that there are no orphans in God's adopted family, and that we have a Mother for all who have lost theirs.