This is a Lonely Place (In Memory of Johnny Carty)

 "... a lonely place... this is

a lonely place" (Matthew 14)

I went to visit my cousin Johnny in hospital late last year. His regret was that he had forgotten to bring his Rosary beads with him. They were as familiar to his hands as the mobile phone is to mine. I gave him my beads and we prayed the Rosary together.

Anyone who ever visited his house would understand that at least a decade of the Rosary would be said before they left. It was as natural to him as a cup of tea. Unashamed. Unpretentious. 

The Rosary and the Mass were pillars of his life. Nothing could separate him from them. As in the words of St. Paul in Romans 8:

"Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked. These are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of him who loved us.

For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

It was not dependent on fickle feeling or on fashion. It was steadfast, undefeated by the sins of the Church because it was centered in the right place - in God. 

He was big in stature and in heart as well as in soul and he was man enough to cry when that was necessary.

Being husband and Father was the fulfillment of his life, creating a home of friendship, hospitality, music, laughter. 

His death brings us to the lonely place spoken of in the Gospel. A lonely place, a place of hunger and yearning, particularly for his immediate family - his sister, sons, daughter, his children's children. 

It is tempting to leave this place, to go in search of what might alleviate the sense of loss and give us what we are seeking. We want to leave because we believe that the resources we have are not enough to see us through what we must experience and endure. 

But Jesus says there is no need for us to go. No need, because He is here and it is He who will take care of what we need. 

The secret for us is to remain with Him and then to give him the loaves and fishes of our scarcity. To give it to Him and not hold it back from Him. And then we discover that what was insufficient becomes enough in time. The hunger is satisfied, the thirst quenched, the sorrow consoled.