O Felix Culpa

Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and Hell trembles with fear. 

from an ancient homily on Holy Saturday

I started this post as a different post about mountains and hiking and failed Lenten promises. But I couldn't get through it without thinking of my dad. He would have been 85 years old today.

Just a few days ago, I was talking to some friends about how his birthday falls on Holy Saturday, the day when Catholics believe Jesus went to the underworld to free all of the faithful who died before He came to save the world. Of course. It would be foolish to believe that the righteous like King David and Moses, Abraham and Queen Esther would be denied entrance into heaven because they were born and died before Christ came. Certainly, He would remember the carpenter from Nazareth who led His Mother out of Bethlehem to Egypt. Of course Jesus would go to set these holy men and women free after His Resurrection. As I was talking to my friends, I pondered, wouldn't Jesus be so merciful as to free my dad who raised us all in the faith and pleaded with God for His mercy as he was confined to his bed in the last weeks of his life?

I don't think anyone would doubt that my dad suffered as his life was coming to an end. Anyone who has faced it knows that Alzheimers is really awful. There were countless times when I would sit by his bedside praying the Liturgy of the Hours with him, and he would join in the prayers he knew. After saying Amen, he would say thank you.

When I was looking at pictures, I started to think about how much he must have also suffered for the sake of his family. I'm fond of saying my parents really loved each other and that they were never apart, but one of my siblings mentioned that there was one Christmas they weren't together, and it was when my dad came here to the US as an immigrant and couldn't yet have the rest of the family with him. It must have been a cold and lonely winter in Chicago where he got his first job in the US.

He went from job to job, looking for what would be best for us. We took so many road trips, and we called him "King of the Road" because of the many miles he would have driven. He sat at my brothers' sports games, and he was in the audience at my dance recitals when I was a little kid. He drove his grandkids to school and back home again. We laugh remembering those days. He was always there when we needed something, and he loved my mom so much.

When I recount the memories, I wonder if a time will come when I won't cry anymore...or at least that the tears will be from laughing so hard at one of his stories. But for now, I'm just relying on Jesus' mercy that takes His beloved out of the darkness and into the light. The gates of hell don't get the last word. Jesus conquered all.