The Aches and Pains of a Winter Cold:  The many changes in the weather have brought about a resurgence of colds and the flu.  I don’t know about you, but I’m over the cold weather and I’m over the slushy snowy rainy freezing drizzly days.  I’m ready for some beautiful, sunny and warm weather.  I also think many people are ready to see an end to the cold and flu season.  Just when you think your family or office has seen the last of the cold/flu season, there’s always ONE person who brings it back and “decides” to share it with everyone else.  Oh, the joys of community working and living!
 
Two aspects of getting a cold that I detest the most are the aches and pains that go with it.  Thankfully, I’ve only had one major cold this season, and that was right before Christmas.  I toughed it out.  But I can be a wimp when it comes to all the aches and pains that go with a cold.  I’m usually bundled up enough during the winter months because I’m forever cold, but you should see me when I have a cold on top of being cold.  I become the king of blankets!
 
Recently, my one sister Jackie ended up with a pretty nasty cold.  She and her husband Lonnie were talking in their living room one night in the midst of her cold.  At one point in the conversation, Jackie needed to get something out of the kitchen.  As she was getting up from the coach, she moaned and groaned a bit because of the aches and pains she was dealing with.  When Lonnie heard the moans and groans and saw her trying to walk, he said … with much compassion but with a tinge of laughter … “Do you feel old?”  Quicker than an owl turning its head, Jackie looked back at Lonnie with “THE look” and said, “NO, I feel SICK!”  Thankfully for him, she wasn’t getting up to make dinner!
 
Right Pew.  Wrong Day.  A priest was recently describing a conversation he had with a parishioner after their morning mass on Wednesday, February 6.  The parishioner was somewhat irritated that Father didn’t bless or distribute ashes at mass that morning.  It took Father a few minutes to figure what this parishioner was talking about but then said, “Guess what?  You’re a month early.  Ash Wednesday is NEXT month on the 6 ^th!”  They both had a good laugh.  Yes, right pew but wrong month!
 
Remembering Sr. Carol:  This Tuesday (February 26) marks the FIFTH anniversary of Sr. Carol’s death.  Yes, FIVE years!! It’s hard to believe Sr. Carol has been at home with the Lord for five years now.  God bless her!  As we remember Sr. Carol, I decided to post again on the home page of our parish website the links to the two videos Sr. Carol recorded shortly before her death.  Consider walking down memory lane by watching those videos.  Both videos are powerful; I still tear up when I see them.
 
I think Sr. Carol’s life and ministry with us is best summed up with the beautiful few lines on the wall plaque in the Gather Place of the Center now named in her honor: “Sr. Carol prayed with us; danced with us; laughed with us.  She inspired us with the humility, simplicity and zeal that marked her as a servant of Jesus Christ.  And foremost, she was our teacher, who taught us to love, and live each day ‘as if it were your first, your last, your only day on earth.’”
 
As I sit here and reminisce about Sr. Carol’s life and ministry, I was drawn to re-read my bulletin posts shortly after her funeral. I’d like to reprint one of those reflections here.
 
Printed March 7, 2014:  Thank You Sr. Carol:  “What a week.  For years we have been walking the journey with Sr. Carol as she battled breast cancer.  We have been praying with and for her.  As it has been said over and over again, she taught us how to live and in a beautiful way she taught us how to die in the Lord.  This week we shared some incredible moments in celebrating the beautiful life, ministry and legacy of our beloved Sr. Carol.
 
“How did she teach us how to live?  She taught us that no matter what cross, hardship, adversity or challenge we are dealing with in our life if we embrace it knowing that God is at our side, we have nothing to fear.  Sr. Carol spent time in prayer and reflection trying to determine what it was that God wanted her to accomplish in the final months and days of her life.  Nothing stopped her!  She was a determined lady who ran at warp speed.  As many know, cancer didn’t slow her down but made her all the more determined to finish the race in grand style.  In the ten years we worked together, I learned you were wise to step out of the way when you saw that blue Ford with the flying Red Wings pendant racing down the street.  That was simply our beloved Sr. Carol doing what she had to do to get to the next ‘thing.’
 
“One of the sayings you’ve heard both of us talk about over the years is that you have to live each day as if it were your first day, your last day, your only day on earth.  She embraced that saying and indeed celebrated each day as a beautiful gift from God.
 
“It was about this time last year when she learned her cancer came back with a vengeance and that she probably only had six months to live.  Even that news didn’t stop her.  She started to accomplish and check off items on her bucket list.  All the while, she continued to minister to others in and around the parish just as before.  And so, as many have mentioned, she not only taught us how to live, but she also taught us all how to die.  She taught us how to die in the Lord.  She taught us how to ‘finish the race,’ as St. Paul once said, knowing that the crown of righteousness and life in the Kingdom of Heaven awaited her.
 
“May our beloved Sr. Carol rest forever in the gentle and beautiful hands of God!” And, YES, “[O]ne day we shall joyfully greet her again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself (Final Commendation, Order of Christian Funerals).”  AMEN!
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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