Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #181 062125: Finding Faith Amidst Grief: Deacon Al's Personal Journey

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Good News #181 062125: Finding Faith Amidst Grief: Deacon Al's Personal Journey · Catholic Spirit Radio

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Welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio, a program for teens and almost
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teens to better understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant in their
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lives, and it's a place where your questions about faith and religion can be answered.
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And now, here's your host, Deacon Al.
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Good evening, and welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I am Deacon Al Lundy, a permanent deacon of the Peoria Diocese,
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and it's always good to talk to you on Saturday and Sunday here on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I want to apologize. You've been listening to, as Dr.
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Ray would say, not the worst of programs the last couple weeks.
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I have not been available.
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Unfortunately, there was a death in my family. My mother passed away on the 5th of June.
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And so, a lot to do, not only with mourning my mother, but funeral arrangements and hosting families.
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And her Her funeral mass was here in Bloomington at Holy Trinity,
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but her commitment and interment was at Holy Cross in Calumet City up near Chicago.
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And so we had that transfer to deal with. And everything that could go wrong did.
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So my mother was cremated.
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And on Monday, so her mass was going to be on Friday, so on Monday,
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I called the funeral home to see when I could take control of her remains,
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possession of her remains.
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And as it turns out, on Sunday night, the state of Illinois...
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Decided to cut in a new software that allowed the county coroner's office to
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communicate with the state in order to generate death certificates. Well, it crashed.
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So as of Monday night, for Monday and Tuesday of that week, there were no death
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certificates being created in Illinois.
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Which made for a real problem because we had a mass to do on Friday and a funeral to do on Saturday.
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And I didn't take possession of ashes until Thursday evening.
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Cutting it a little close. And they still didn't have a death certificate.
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They were working off a screen grab of the death certificate when the system
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came up just long enough for someone at the county coroner's office,
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and thank you, McLean County Coroners, to be able to grab an image of it.
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And we were able to use that to get permission to go ahead. So then we get out
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to Chicago on Saturday morning and, well, it's actually Calumet City, but it's a suburb.
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A line of cars waiting at the cemetery. We thought it was for another funeral.
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Turns out it was for my mother.
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And I got up to the counter to let them know we were here and get an escort
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out because I didn't know where the grave site was.
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And they said, well, we need the certificate of cremation. And I said, the what?
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I'd never heard of such a thing. We need the certificate of cremation.
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It's probably in the decorative box with the urn.
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So I go to the car and I get mom out of the car and I open up the box and there's
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nothing in it but the urn.
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So I go back to the counter. I said, I do not have any such animal.
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They said, well, we can't bury her without it.
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And I mean, I've got like 50, 60 people waiting for a commitment service, a committal service.
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And I'm lacking paperwork. And you know how important paperwork is? Gosh.
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So I had to, the last time my mom gets to pull rank. So she was a politician
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in our hometown where she's getting buried for, gosh, over 16 years.
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But this was like 40 years back, right?
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So I say to the fellow behind the counter who looks definitely old enough to
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have known my mother, I said, I don't think you understand who I have here.
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I am holding Alderman Margaret Lundy of the Sixth Ward.
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And he went, I'm sorry, I had no idea. Let's get her out to her gravesite.
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And it was no problem, no paperwork, no problem. Send it to us when you get it.
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So mom came through again, even after her death. Her name still carries some
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weight back in the hometown.
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And we were able to get her buried on time on the right day with all of her
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friends and family around.
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And I tell you that story because it actually ties in with the readings of this
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weekend's mass. You say, well, how is that possible?
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Well, one thing I'm learning is that when there's a death in the family and
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when you're the executor of the will, there's a lot of property that has to get given to people.
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You know, this lamp has to go to a certain person. The lamp can't go to everybody,
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so it has to go to a certain person. So who gets it?
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And who doesn't get it? Who do you say, they don't get this item,
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but this person does, right?
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And that's part of the role of the executor. And you think you have all these
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great personal treasures, things that were really important to mom that might
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be important to some people, but might not be important to others.
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And you're trying to find the right home for not just an item or a couple dozen
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items, but for hundreds of items.
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Everything she owned, every piece of furniture, every piece of jewelry, right? Who gets what?
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And that's a really difficult decision.
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And the more valuable the item is, the harder the decision that you have to make, right?
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Well, this weekend is the solemnity of the most holy body and blood of Christ.
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We used to call it Corpus Christi, the body of Christ.
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What is more precious in this world than the body and blood of our Lord and
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Savior who died and so his things have to be left to people so who gets what,
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Well, that's what we're going to talk about when we look at our readings for this Sunday.
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So keep that in mind that death isn't the end of our journey.
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Death is the beginning of our journey.
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This is not our home. My mother's home is in heaven. Our home is in heaven.
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This is a tent. What we have now, this body is a tent.
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The life we live is temporary. It was never meant to be permanent.
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We are not built, we're not created to be an eternal being.
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It's what we become afterwards, where we enter into eternity.
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So it's really important, and I think that's what differentiates Catholicism and the funeral mass.
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Because I just want to, at the same time, just days after my mother passed,
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my daughter-in-law's grandfather passed. So my son lost his grandmother,
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his wife, my daughter-in-law lost her grandfather days apart.
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So in the last week, actually, we had two funerals to attend,
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one Catholic, one Protestant.
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Very, very different services. And I think part of it is ideology.
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We don't look at death the same way as some of our other Christian brothers and sisters do.
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We're less about the mourning and more about the celebration of a new eternal life.
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And theirs is a little bit about that, but a lot of it is aimed at mourning,
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which is understandable because that's part of our humanity.
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But I think it's important to understand that we are a people of faith and hope.
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And we have faith in Christ and what he taught us. We have hope in what He promised
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us in an eternity with God, our Father.
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And so, death to us is more of a door opening than a door closing as we head
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into this new, incredible life with God in heaven.
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So, there was a different kind of flavor to each funeral service,
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the funeral mass and the funeral service, and between the two committals.
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There's a definite difference in them.
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And so that was an interesting thing to see. But in both cases,
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we're mourning and celebrating.
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In both cases, we're looking at what happens with the heritage that's been left
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behind by the person who's passed.
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So Jesus left this world to go on to his kingdom in heaven.
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But He left us something very, very, very valuable. And where we have to worry
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about who gets it, Jesus took a whole different avenue towards that.
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So let's talk about that right after these messages when we come back to more
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good news here on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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Music.
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And welcome back to Good News. I'm Deacon Al Lundy.
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If you'd like to ask a question about Catholicism or Christianity and have us
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answer it here on the air, you can write us.
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We have a little email bag you can send your question to.
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It's goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com, and that will get brought to my attention,
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and we can address it here on the air during Good News, which airs every Saturday
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and Sunday from 8 to 8.30 on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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And I was mentioning just before the break about my mother having passed last week.
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I want to thank everyone who attended the Mass.
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We've got all kinds of emails and phone calls with condolences for my mother's passing.
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She was 94 years old, lived an incredible life. If you get a chance to look
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up her obituary on dignitymemorial.com under Margaret Lundy,
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This was an incredible woman.
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She was so active in our community. In fact, we had a sign in our hallway that
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my father put up that said, you are personally responsible for the quality of your community.
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And that had a huge impact on my four brothers and I growing up.
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Two of my brothers became police
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officers, firefighters, paramedics at different points in their lives.
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Another brother right now is considering the diaconate, discerning for that.
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And he heads a men's group at his parish. He's a lector.
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He teaches Sunday school, catechism. My oldest brother also heads a men's group
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at his large parish, and he's a greeter at Mass every weekend.
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Also has taught religious education. I've got my two other brothers are active
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in their prayer life and in their churches.
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So it really, they made a huge, had a huge influence on who we became as people, as adults.
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So check out her obituary. And if you're so moved, she's mentioned a couple
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of charities that we would ask you to support in her name, and I'm going to add a third.
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So my mother loved Catholic Spirit Radio. She listened to it frequently.
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And if you would like to help recognize my mother in some way,
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I'll ask you to make a donation to Catholic Spirit Radio in her name, it's very easy to do.
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You go to our website, catholicspiritradio.org, and you can click on the Donate
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button and make your donation there, and you just make a little notation that
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you're doing this in the name of Margaret Lundy, and that would be greatly,
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greatly appreciated. So,
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This is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
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This is one of the great solemnities as we enter into ordinary time now that
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we have Easter season behind us.
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The first reading is from the book of Genesis, and then we have a letter from
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Paul to the Corinthians, and then we have the Gospel from Luke.
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So in the reading from Genesis, it says, in those days, Melchizedek,
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king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High,
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he blessed Abraham with these words,
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Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, the creator of heaven and earth,
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and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your foes into your hand.
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Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.
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So, a few things in this reading to realize, is Salem is an early name for Bethlehem. It's the same place.
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So, I'm sorry, not Bethlehem, Jerusalem. So you have Salem and Jerusalem, the new Salem.
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So, Melchizedek was the king of what would become Jerusalem.
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He brings out bread and wine. So what does that sound like?
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That's communion, right? So this is a very early prototype of what would become the Eucharist.
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And he brings it out in order to give glory to God and to bless Abraham as God
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had promised him that he would make him the king of many tribes or the head
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of many tribes, the father of many tribes.
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And so this is the blessing as Abraham defeats his foes and his family enlarges
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and the land that he controls grows larger.
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But they give all that to God, not to Abram, but to God.
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Also, we have Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Well, that's tithing.
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Now, in the Catholic Church, we no longer see tithing as part of the church.
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But in the early Jewish church, tithing was a very important part.
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And there are still churches today that call upon their members to tithe,
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to give a tenth of everything they own to the church for the church support
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and also for the church to share in their ministries with others.
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The second reading...
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Comes from a letter from Paul to the church in Corinth.
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And Paul writes, Brothers and sisters, I received from the Lord what I also
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handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
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took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said,
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This is my body that is for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me.
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And in the same way, also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death
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of the Lord until he comes again. The word of the Lord.
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So again, we see the body and blood of Christ. We see the Eucharist.
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And understand that as Catholics, we view the Eucharist very differently than
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our Protestant brothers and sisters.
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And I've always found this a little amazing
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and they give a great reverence what
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they do but what they do isn't what
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Christ said to do in scriptures and I guess
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what confuses me is so many of our Protestant brothers and sisters talk about
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sola scriptura only what scripture says the scripture is enough well if the
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scripture is enough I have to ask why are certain parts of it ignored.
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John 6,
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right? It comes to mind immediately.
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In John 6, Jesus tells us that his body is real food and his blood is real drink.
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And they say, oh, that's kind of hard to understand. That's a difficult lesson for us to follow.
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And Jesus doesn't back off. He doesn't say, no, I'm just kidding,
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or you've misunderstood me, or I mean symbolically.
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He says, no, amen, amen, I tell you, my body is real food and my blood is real
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drink, and you must eat of my body and drink of my blood in order to enter heaven. It's pretty clear.
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And why some think, well, he meant metaphorically, or he meant symbolically.
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And that's not what Jesus said. He said, no, no, this is it. This really is it.
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And they say, well, I can't go along with that. And they walked away.
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And that was really, that's really the beginning of Protestantism.
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It didn't happen in the 1500s. It happened during the time of Christ when people
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couldn't accept what Jesus said completely without putting their own spin on
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it, their own translation to it.
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Say, well, I know that's what he said, but that's not really what he meant.
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And I think that's a big difference, where the Catholic faith looks at what
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Jesus says and just accepts that, okay, that's what he meant.
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We may not fully understand it, but we accept that since Christ said it,
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that's what he meant to say.
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Because he really didn't beat around the bush that much. I mean,
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he told some parables from time to time and said, there's a real lesson in here.
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Think about it and learn from it. But when it came to John 6,
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that was a very, very intended specific message that so many Christians still
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today say, that's a little too harsh to understand, so we're going to set that
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aside, and we're going to say it means this rather than what Jesus said.
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And that's why we celebrate the body and blood of Christ, because we believe
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that in the Eucharist, that's exactly what we're receiving.
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We're receiving precisely what Christ said it was.
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He got to the Last Supper, and as we hear in Paul's letter to the church in
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Corinth, he raises the bread and blesses it and says, take this and eat of it. This is my body.
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And he does the same thing with the drink. Take this and drink.
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This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant.
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So Jesus wants us to eat of his body and blood.
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And so at every Mass performs this miracle where in front of our eyes,
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through the calling down, what we call the epiclesis of the Holy Spirit,
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these materials, these simple materials of bread and wine are altered at the
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very core of what they are.
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They might still look like bread and wine, but they aren't.
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They've become the body and the blood of Christ. And so that's why we celebrate
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it, because it's unique to Catholic, and the Orthodox Church also believes in
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the actual transubstantiation of these materials.
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And I think that's one of the most beautiful things about the Catholic faith,
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is their 2,000 years of following the very words of Christ and the very actions
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of Christ and celebrating those.
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The thought of eating of Christ's body and blood is beautiful.
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And getting back to what we talked about in inheritance, Paul talks about he's
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giving to the church what he's received, the same thing he's received from Christ.
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And the church continues to hand down.
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To all who believe, the exact same thing that Christ handed to us.
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Our greatest inheritance from the death of Christ is the Eucharist.
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And that's why we celebrate it every day of the year, not just on Sundays,
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but we celebrate the Eucharist every single day. What a beautiful gift to receive.
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Better than Grandma's lamp. Yeah, better than that oak chest or those diamond
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earrings that get handed down from generation to generation,
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to be handed down the very body and blood of our Lord and Savior.
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What better inheritance can we have as a people?
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And so we celebrate that this weekend.
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In our gospel from the gospel of Luke, Luke writes, Jesus spoke to the crowds
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about the kingdom of God, and he healed those who needed to be cured.
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As the day was drawing to a close, the twelve approached him and said,
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Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
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and find lodgings and provisions.
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For we are in a deserted place here.
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And Jesus said to them, Give them some food yourselves.
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They replied, Five loaves and two fishes are all we have, and unless we ourselves
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go and buy food for all these people, and we are talking thousands of people here.
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Now the men there numbered about five thousand. And then he said to his disciples,
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Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.
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They did so, and made them all sit down. Then taking the five loaves and the
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two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them,
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broke them, gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
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And they all ate and were satisfied.
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And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets. Gospel of the Lord.
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So here again, we see a precursor of the Eucharist.
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Christ raises the bread, prays over it, and then divides it up for everyone,
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and there's plenty for all.
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And that, to me, is the most important fact about this gospel,
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that what God provides, what Jesus provides, is in abundance.
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He doesn't just kind of put out meager shares of His graces.
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He has more than enough to share with everyone, and He offers it to everyone.
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And in another gospel, it explains that of the 5,000, everyone ate their fill,
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and there was still more to be had.
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And that's how it is with the graces of God. He never runs out.
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He never says, well, that's my allotment for the month.
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You're praying a little late in the month. I'm all out. Come back to me next month.
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He has enough for everyone. And all you have to do is be there,
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just as you just had to be there at the breaking of the bread and the fish to
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take part in this wonderful meal.
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You have to be at the Mass in order to take part in the Eucharist.
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You can't just watch it on TV.
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It's not the same. You have to receive the body and blood of Christ through
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the Eucharist in order to get the full graces that God is offering us.
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So take this special weekend and use it as an incentive to bring you,
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bring your family back to the Mass, back to the Church,
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back to Christ's presence, to be in community with others who share this faith
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with you, and be able to say amen when it's offered to you, that you believe
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in everything Christ teaches,
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including the transubstantiation of His body and blood into the Eucharist.
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Christ loves you, and so do I. May Almighty God bless you, protect you from
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all evil, and bring you to everlasting life.
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And we'll talk to you again next week on Catholic Spirit Radio here on Good News.
24:37
You've been listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio,
24:40
a program for teens and almost teens to better understand that the gospel of
24:44
Jesus Christ is relevant in your life.
24:46
Submit your questions to Deacon Al at goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
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That's goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com. Deacon will answer your questions
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about faith and religion.
24:57
Thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
25:01
The noble gift of our sexuality is not something to be demeaned.
25:05
Regrettably, pornography, fornication, and adultery are rampant today.
25:11
If we want to be influential as Catholic and moral leaders in the domestic church
25:16
of our home, we must be chaste.
25:19
We can't allow ourselves to be degraded, to lose our crucial power of spiritual
25:26
leadership due to this sin.
25:28
Our family needs us to be their moral heroes.
25:32
We cannot submit to the temptation of unchastity.
25:36
And if we should fall, we need to immediately repent, go to confession, and get back in the.
25:43
To be champions of chastity. We can't give an inch to these dark temptations.
25:49
Pornography is always wrong and disordered.
25:53
It unfailingly leaves its wound, doing grave harm to the user,
25:58
his or her family, as well as the so-called performers who make pornography,
26:03
who are dehumanized and used as objects of another's pleasure.
26:09
With pornography, one takes pleasure
26:11
at the expense of the degradation of others as well as one's self.
26:16
Listen, quote, love takes no pleasure in other people's sins,
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but delights in the truth.
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First Corinthians 13, 6. You see, we are temples of the Holy Spirit,
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as are those involved in making pornography.
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Quote, your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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First Corinthians 6, 19.
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We must win this fight at all costs. The stakes are too high.
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You and I are too good for unchastity.
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Mercifully, our Lord Jesus is there to do most of the fighting for us if we only turn to Him.
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Jesus is your champion. I'm Jim Littleton, forming FaithfulFamilies.com.