Something Precious: Remembering Patricia
It’s Friday evening, feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and I’m restless. The restlessness of the bereaved. I don’t know what to do with myself. And end up in the almost empty church. I kneel. I stand. Do the stations of the cross. And there it is, a point of connection. Mary holding the dead body of her son. She is every mother and father. They are all in her and she in them. The parents whose child has died too soon. A child’s death is always too soon. We were here in the church this morning for the funeral of Patricia who, with her twin sister, turned ten a few weeks ago. Eleven months ago she was diagnosed with cancer and I first met her in February when she was brought to the church in a wheelchair. I prayed with her, anointed her, wished with all my heart that I could save her, heal her . She wondered why a good girl like her had to be so sick. At Mass last Sunday we heard these words from the Bible “ You have been trusted to look after something precious; gu...