Looking ‘Through A Glass Darkly’

LORRAINE V. MURRAY, Special Contributor

Published: September 30, 2004

I am having breakfast with my mom’s sister Rita at a Best Western restaurant in Tampa. As we sip coffee, I can’t help but reflect that my mom died many years ago, when she was in her sixties, but both her sisters are still living and are now in their eighties.

And yes, I have wondered, time and again, why my mom didn’t live to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as did her sisters.

I love getting together with my Aunt Rita because she has so many mannerisms—and those chocolate-brown eyes—that remind me of my mom. They were among six children raised by first-generation Neapolitan immigrants in New York City, and today only two of those children are left.

This morning, Aunt Rita is in a rather philosophical mood. She fixes her big eyes on me and out of the blue, ponders anew the tragedy that shattered her life many years ago.

Why did God take her young husband when she had two tiny children to rear? She and her husband, Johnny Rosasco, were very happy together. He was in the Navy and died aboard a ship after a heart attack was misdiagnosed as a stomach ailment.

Her life was never the same after that, as she struggled to raise her son and daughter alone. “Why?” was the question she posed over and over to God—and it is the one she directs at me this morning over coffee.

I certainly understand the deeply rooted impulse to ask, “Why?” I have also directed the same question to God over and over, about my mom’s death when she was 64.

It took me many years to heal after that catastrophe, and to finally reach a point where I stopped bemoaning how young she died and was instead grateful for having her as my mom for as long as I did.

In some mysterious way, her work on earth was done when she was 64, and God called her home. That he knew what he was doing is the very heart of faith, of course.

Still, a few years ago, after I was diagnosed with cancer, the “why?” question reared its head once more. I even wrote a book with the title of “Why Me? Why Now?” as I grappled to accept what had happened to me.

A high control person, somehow I thought that following a vegetarian diet, taking vitamins and doing regular aerobic exercise would fend off the cancer demon. How wrong I was!

As the years pass, though, I see that so often, the “why?” question is impossible to answer. Living in faith means accepting there are things we will never understand, at least not in this earthly life.

As St. Paul so aptly put it, on earth we “see through a glass darkly,” which means that what we glimpse is often distorted. I take his words to suggest that after our sojourn on earth is over, we will get a new shiny pair of glasses—and a better view.

And I also trust that we will one day understand why things happened to us. And how they all fit together like pieces of fabric into the giant quilts of our lives that were especially created for us by God.

But what do I say to Aunt Rita, who is gazing at me with those big brown eyes? The best I can do this morning is repeating something to her that helped me when I first heard it. “Everything that happens is within God’s providence,” I murmur. Which means that if you believe God is all-powerful, you must conclude that nothing surprises him. He truly is in charge of the world.

Trusting in his providence, I add, doesn’t mean that God causes everything that happens to us, but rather that he is aware of it, and he allows it.

Keep in mind that humans have free will, I tell her. Which means that if some human being, like the doctor on Uncle Johnny’s ship so long ago, had done the diagnosis right, my uncle might still be alive today.

Which also means that if mammograms had existed when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, her problem might have been discovered much sooner. And she might be sitting in the restaurant with us this morning.

Whew. This is some heavy duty thinking over the first cup of coffee.

Later, I remember a treasured quote from a favorite saint, Therese of the Child Jesus, a simple little nun who lived in the 1800s in France. She died when she was quite young, after living a life that seemed incredibly ordinary.

After her death, she became known as The Little Flower—and today she is revered around the world for her faith journey recorded in her diary.

Therese, whose feast day is Oct. 1, wrote about “a little way to heaven, very short and direct, an entirely new way.” It was the way of childlike surrender, the way of the child who sleeps, afraid of nothing, in his father’s arms.

Little children were her models for living because little children can’t do great deeds, but they can give great love.

Here is the astonishing thing about St. Therese: She realized that everything, good and bad, comes from God’s hands.

“Everything is a grace,” she wrote. “Everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs—everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness.”

Her words help unlock the secret to the mystery of graciously accepting whatever life sends us. We have to see that the catastrophes, as well as the adventures, the smiles as well as the struggles, are all part of God’s plan for our lives.

“Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well,” St. Therese wrote.

It is noteworthy that we rarely ask the “why?” question when God sends us gifts that we like.

We don’t ask him why he gave us life, or why he gave us our faith or a comfortable home or good friends. As for me, I never asked him why he allowed my mom to live for 64 years, when other mothers die much younger.

I suspect that most folks, like my aunt, don’t ask God why he sent them wonderful children and grandchildren.

St. Therese learned one of life’s hardest lessons, which is that everything comes from the hand of God. Many years after The Little Flower died, another woman chose her as an example for living a holy life.

That woman was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now known as Blessed Teresa.

Blessed Teresa taught that the way to true holiness was doing small things with great love. She compared little acts of love to drops in the ocean because without the drops, however humble, there would be no ocean.

She also taught the childlike way of surrendering to God’s will. She advised that we must “give all that God takes and take all that He gives, with a smile.”

As for asking God “why?” she didn’t. Instead, she accepted his will graciously.

And so perhaps this is the best I can do for my beloved aunt. I can pray that she will come to see that every life has catastrophes and wondrous events. And every person at some time shakes his fist at heaven and cries, “Why?”

I also pray that my aunt will realize that some questions go unanswered, since we are still looking through the glass darkly. But someday we will put on new eyes in a new Jerusalem. We will behold the face of God and say, “Oh, now I understand. Now I truly see!”

Lorraine V. Murray writes a bi-weekly column for the Faith and Values section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She is the author of “Why Me? Why Now? Finding Hope When You Have Breast Cancer” (Ave Maria Press) and “Grace Notes” (Catholic Book Publishing/Resurrection Press). She lives in Decatur with her husband, Jef, two gerbils, a cat and a hamster. E-mail: lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.