Garden: deaths, life and trust

Firstly, please see this beautiful link for a Novena that Father Dan Leary is leading for the Assumption of Mary (when Mary was assumed into heaven). 

My garden has been such a joy this summer. 

It has given me layers of joy and has taught me lessons. I've learned about plants and what they like, fertilizing soil, the importance of sun and nutrients. One of the things I didn't expect was to experience grief with my garden. I experienced grief from two sides that made me think quite a bit. My dear beautiful and vibrant aunt, uncle, and her father all died from COVID in the span of two weeks about two weeks ago. In those same two weeks leading up to their deaths, they were in the ICU. My heart throbbed prayers for them and I felt frozen thinking of my gorgeous bubbly aunt suffering. In that moment, my vibrant joyful zucchini plant was plagued with a tiny insect that began to eat it's core and slowly kill it. 

As I slowly started to see my zucchini plant fail, I would get phone calls with sadder news of my family dropping off one by one at the hospital. There was no way to not think about them as I clipped dying flowers and leaves from my plant hoping it would survive as I prayed for the recovery of the family members left. They each slowly slipped away. I sat and dug out the remaining roots of my zucchini plant, and thought about this all.

 I thought for quite a few days and weeks as I would look at the moving clouds, the singing birds, the curious bunnies and think "this will all end one day."

What has given me solace more than anything is knowing that there is more. It isn't difficult to understand, or require a theological degree or anything complicated. It is very simple: we are children of a loving omnipotent Father who loves us. He loves us so much and wants what a good father wants for his children: for them to do the right thing always, to trust him and to love him. I firmly believe that this omnipotent Father is so great He is able to hide Himself in the little veil of the Communion host at Mass. 

He is there, and is who he tells us he is in the Bible: God is Love. He healed the sick. He raised the lame. He gave sight to the blind. He raised the dead. He made miracles left and right physically. When Jesus gave us the Holy Eucharist, He gave us Himself. He is omnipotent which means He can do anything. Did Jesus ever make someone sick? No. Kill anyone? No. He is purity and goodness at the core. Therefore, that is who is is at each Eucharistic table. With my aunt, and here whole family slaughtered by the coronavirus, there was no way I was going to go to the grocery store without true need. There was no way I was going to go for a walk in a crowded park. And the only place I knew I was safe from the virus was in the church, in front of the Eucharist when I was receiving Him. The Eucharist is a living breathing miracle that is all of Christ. He is here with us now to help us through this passage of our lives to cross over to the next part where our souls will keep living. 

Sweet Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who died and is about to be declared a saint, started a website with Eucharistic Miracles. He collected the miracles from all over the world and countries and put it on this beautiful website for people to see the miracles of Jesus even now. 

I came to embrace the death of my aunt as an awareness of the reality of our immortal souls. She is still alive, just not here. It's like she went to the amazon but better, with no cell phone reception, email or access to depressing news. Her being is still alive and is with God the Father. And while we are here, we get the chance to experience that same taste of eternity in the Holy Eucharist who is life. 

My zucchini plant is forever dead, but my aunt isn't. The promise of knowing our souls actually do live on and we have a Father who just asks us to trust Him is all the more reason to step up with faith. Lying on my deathbed isn't where I want to get to talk to the one who made me and will ask me like a father what I did with my life, who I was rude to, who I hurt, and who I overlooked. I don't want to face my Maker who will ask me why I never talked to Him before or tried to get to know Him. He has a personality, passion, laughter, and wants to walk this journey of life with us each day in the little moments as well. 

Lastly, He will never hurt is in the Eucharist. God is love and the great healer. Jesus bore our sins and pain on the cross and in that moment He carried our pain. There is no way the virus can be transmitted through the Eucharist, because God is pure love and a miracle in each particle of the host. Embracing Him like Mary Magdalene did at the foot of the cross is what we can do and ask for an increase in faith, because we need even His help to have faith.