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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Easter Vigil for GG Isabel


Our prayers and thanksgiving this Easter Vigil are dedicated in a special way to T's grandmother, 
our GG Isabel.


On Tuesday, GG Isabel went home to be with the Lord. 

As Aunt A wrote beautifully in memory of GG, "she will be remembered by many as a loyal friend, an avid bridge player, a dedicated member of her community, and a true embodiment of Christian love."  Though we have lived far from GG for the past 7 years, she sent us a loving card at each holiday and never missed an opportunity to encourage us over the phone.  T and I are both blessed with lifelong memories of her example as wife, mother, grandmother and friend.    

This year, as we celebrate Christ's Resurrection, it will take on special meaning for us.  GG is a powerful role model of faith in our lives.  In faith and hope, we look forward to praising God by her side in heaven forever.

"When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers throughout my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of "justification by faith alone," although I will thank God that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways--these and all other gifts I have received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will, with Dysmas, look to Christ and Christ alone.  Then I hope to hear him say, "Today you will be with me in paradise," as I hope with all my being--because, although looking to him alone, I am not alone--he will say to all." 
-- Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


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