My wife was watching our kids but turned her attention away for a moment. When she looked back to see where our kids were, she saw our daughter Emilia but didn't see Adam.
"Emilka, where's Adam?" my wife asked.
Emilia didn't know and my wife couldn't see Adam anywhere. She stood up to look for him. The mall was crowded with people and, as I've mentioned, the play area was open to four different alleys. She looked in all directions, wondering which way he might have gone - or been taken.
The worst fear a parent can experience chilled my wife's heart. Oh God, where can he be?
And then, she saw him. Adam was wearing a shirt the exact same color as the children's play equipment. The little chameleon was playing happily the whole time, just a few feet away!
I once dreamt of losing Adam in similar circumstances and woke up from that dream with my heart racing.
That's as close as my wife and I have come to losing one of our children, real or dreamt. (How ever many times they have been saved unawares from harm by their guardian angels, we'll probably only know in heaven.)
December 14th marks the one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre at the primary school in Newtown CT. My wife and I can only imagine the pain and grief of those parents who lost children that day.
I'll now turn the rest of this posting over to some text from this month's Magnificat.
From the Editorial, by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P., Editor-in-Chief:
There is something that many Magnificat readers may not know. Since my main apostolate is Magnificat, I am not assigned like other priests to a parish. But each Sunday I help out in a parish. And the parish where I have been celebrating Mass on Sundays for the past four years is Saint Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, Connecticut.
On the evening of the massacre, Mass was held at Saint Rose. I got there early, and was overwhelmed at the turnout. Easily a thousand people packed the church too small for such a crowd. And another thousand massed outside.
I kept wondering: Why are they here? What are they looking for? Not all of them were parishioners . . . or even Catholic, for that matter. And although they could not get inside the church, people did not opt to leave. They stayed because they had to be there. The atrocity had incited an instant Advent: the urgent need for God amidst the pain of human powerlessness. Together we had become expectation.
What was the only thing adequate to meet the agony people were suffering in that desperate moment? The answer appears on the lips of one of the bereaved young mothers. Jenny Hubbard's beautiful, redheaded, six-year-old daughter Catherine had been slain in the rampage. Barely a month later, Saint Rose Church held a gathering of grade school parents. And Jenny volunteered to speak to them. I asked her where she found the strength to do what most people would consider impossible. Jenny replied, "There is a Presence that is so much better than ourselves, and we have to acknowledge it."
Lamb of God
Jenny Hubbard
It is the time during Mass where my tears flow steadily:
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
It is then that the pain becomes overwhelmingly raw. The wound that I think has started to heal is suddenly ripped open.
Lambs are innocent, exposed, and vulnerable, and yet they are always protected. My lamb is my Catherine. I knew her cry before it came from her lungs. I knew it was Catherine calling "Mama" even though she was in a room full of children calling out. I knew where she was, even when I couldn't see her. She is the lamb I knew had been called home before I truly understood what had happened. Just knowing - it is a gift God gave me when he placed her next to my heart for nine months. A gift he gave me when he allowed the quiet beating of our hearts to find rhythm next to each other's.
It is always a lamb I see when I think of Catherine. She is the lamb that she would nuzzle right beside Mary in the Nativity. She is the lamb that greets us from the pasture as we walk on a foggy spring morning. She is the lamb I had carved into the footstone at her resting place. And now, as I tuck it into the pages when I close my Bible, it is Catherine that I see walking confidently beside Jesus on her prayer card.
"The Lord is my Shepherd there is nothing I shall want" (Ps 23:1). It is Jesus who was waiting for her as he welcomed his flock. He led her to still waters, and she fears no evil. She is his lamb, innocent and vulnerable - naïve to what the world is capable of. She is sheltered under his vigilant watch; she is whole and is resting peacefully at his feet.
And I too am his lamb. It is myself he has cradled across his shoulders. He knows my heart aches to feel the beating of hers against mine. He acknowledges my cry, even when it hasn't yet left my lungs. He hears my quiet calling through all the voices and comes to me. I know that he will guide me as I seek his guidance, and that he will answer my voice when I call out. He continues to scoop me up and carry me when the days seem too much. He shows his unending love in the simplest things that are so undeniably Catherine. In doing so he reminds me that his promise has not been broken. He reminds me that one day he will gently lift me from his shoulders and place me beside her. When that day comes, I will close my eyes and relish the quiet rhythm of our beating hearts.
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