From the Heart of the Shepherd
From the bulletin for The Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 August 23)
August 23 - 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
In late 2023 my Aunt Julie was diagnosed with ALS. The degenerative disease first manifested itself as an emergent speech impediment in my aunt, then just 63. Over the next two and a half years, that “impediment” spread throughout the muscles of her body.
I was able to fly to visit her in April of 2024 and spend a few days with her and the family while she was still able to get around more or less like always, just with greater difficulty and speaking and some fatigue. But by the end of that year she could communicate only with her iPad. By the end of 2025 she was entirely confined to her bed and dependent on her family for all her needs.
In June of this year, very early on a Monday morning, I got a text message from my mom. I saw the notification but didn’t read the message. I thought to myself, why is mom texting at five thirty in the morning? Aunt Julie had not been on my mind in recent days. Nevertheless, the thought came immediately: Aunt Julie must have died; Mom is texting us kids to let us know.
I sat with that thought–a supposition, really–for a moment, and then fell back to sleep (Mondays are my rest day, after all!). When I got up later and checked my phone, I saw that the text message was about something entirely different.
Even earlier that same morning, on the other side of the country, one of my uncles (also named David) awoke around 2:30am. Uncharacteristically, he was unable to fall back asleep.
That same night, my Aunt Julie’s sister had a dream. In it, Julie appeared to her and said, “Goodbye Jan. I’m going to Heaven.” Then she disappeared.
It turns out that my Aunt Julie did in fact die very early that morning. Perhaps around the time my Uncle David awoke. Shortly before Jan had that dream. Hours before her priest nephew interpreted a text message as the herald of her passing.
These individual threads, each individually rather insignificant, were tied together only on the day of her funeral, when my large maternal extended family flew into Kansas City. Tied together, I think they serve as a reminder both of our interconnectedness, and the nearness (and real-ness) of the “spiritual world.” Which, of course, is the same world we inhabit, only we tend to pay more attention to the material side of things.
When the soul leaves the body at the moment of death, what stories like these indicate is that there is typically a lapse in which the body is dead but the soul is somehow still “around”, “on earth.” If the soul is Heaven-bound, it will eventually make its way there. But the length of the lapse depends on the soul’s readiness at the time of death. If Jan’s dream is to be trusted, through her two-plus years of suffering and preparation, my Aunt Julie evidently became very ready. Her lapse was very brief–time enough to make some rounds within her extended family that morning and then pass over. Others are not so ready. In San Francisco, there is a retired U.S. aircraft carrier known as the Hornet. Apparently, it is one of the most studied and documented “haunted” places in the world. Tourists and scientists alike have had thousands of encounters with the ghosts of the men who served on that vessel over the decades. Comparing those sightings to naval records, they say they have even been able to identify hundreds of these spectres. And if you are willing to believe it: one is a Catholic priest! He had served as chaplain on the carrier. Then he died and (don’t ask me how they ascertained this) went to Heaven, his soul returned to the ship to help those still “stuck” there move along towards the light.
You can make of that what you will. In last weekend’s bulletin, in honor of the solemnity of the Assumption, I shared a fictional attempt to envision what Heaven will be like–at least one aspect of it. Now, after the conclusion of the “Assumption octave” (yesterday was the feast of the Queenship of Mary, August 22), with all that is going on at the parish I think it’s fitting to reflect a bit on the journey that hopefully awaits us all when our mortal lives come to an end. True, unlike Mother’s, our bodies will be more like checked luggage, for which we will have to wait a bit after our arrival. Still, (and especially after a year in which we were striving to live for the Day of the Lord) we should be sure we are ready to make that trip at the drop of a hat, or the sound of the trumpet. And when we discover that those we love have earlier departure times, to take solace in the knowledge that God and His Mother are trying to bring us all to the same destination.
Comments