Praying For Trish . I

The email asked if I would be a “Prayer Angel” for a month; I responded “Okie Dokey”.

I was asked to pray for Trish, a mom-to-be, living in a community of women who support her. Her baby is due on June 25th. “Trish is working on decision making and setting realistic boundaries for herself. She is working on letting go, and letting God into her life. Please pray for Trish, especially for community living and its challenges”

I came home tonight after putting mom to bed, and felt compelled to say my nightly rosary. I’ve been skipping some nights lately; excuses come easy. My latest is that the local 24/7 chapel is due to re-open soon, then I’ll be “religious” in my efforts again. But tonight, I thought about praying on the way home, and then on the kitchen table I saw the flier I had printed out, asking me to pray for Trish.

I guess it’s fitting that today is Thursday, and so I began the Joyful Mysteries. The first is the Annunciation: A decision has to be made about new life. Mary says yes, a blessed event, but also the beginning of her trials. I was just starting this first decade when suddenly I recalled another “Trish,” my friend Pat who had died last year. And I found myself praying to her.

Hi Pat. I pray that my words find you in heaven this night, or at least in Purgatory and near heaven’s entrance door. Tonight I am praying the rosary for a young woman named Trish, a namesake of yours. She is young and pregnant and soon to have a baby. Pat, I remember how you and I sat and talked about our youth, and our youthful mistakes. I always felt comfortable talking to you. It’s funny, although I can recall some of our specific conversations about sad events in our youth --- the results of our “knowing” everything, yet I can’t recall us ever wishing they didn’t happen, even the ones that caused us so much stress and pain. I guess looking back, with some wisdom of age, we could see that even the bad was a good thing, in the long run. We found it to be true, that God could make good out of any bad. And in our older years we knew that without a doubt. Too bad we didn’t have that wisdom when we were younger, eh Pat, perhaps some of the errors could have been avoided, and perhaps the ones that couldn’t be wouldn’t have been so painful. And perhaps you might not, and I might not be worried about, spending some long periods in Purgatory.

Pat, wherever you are at, would you also pray for Trish? I committed to pray for her for the next month; I’d like it if we could pray for her together. I miss our conversations. And I miss our praying together. And at least we can still do that.

I prayed on to the Visitation Mystery, Mary getting comfort in her pregnancy from those who love her, from those who will pray for her. Then the Birth of Jesus, pain, happiness, and then wonder at it all. What does all this mean? I suspect Trish will be feeling some of those same reactions. The Presentation is the offering of baby Jesus to God, giving thanks for God’s blessing of the child. Every child is a blessing; every life is precious; every life has a purpose – some great, some small, and some perhaps unknown. But all are loved by God. And the Joyful Mysteries end with the Finding in the Temple. A most fitting ending; the near-teen Jesus begins exhibiting his independence: and you think you had it bad up to now? The “Joyful” period ends. Nothing is written in the scriptures about Jesus’ teenage years; perhaps Mary made the apostles promise not to repeat those stories? Those are difficult times, for moms and their children. But even those are blessings, even if they don’t seem like it at the time.

I pray all will be well for Trish and her baby, and to the degree that she needs to learn and really appreciate in her heart how much God loves her, I pray she gains even more graces than she might need --- that some of that love might flow over from her to her child. We are so confused about love in this country; we think of the word and we wonder if anyone loves us. But real love, the love that God images in us, is not about getting love, it’s about giving it. I pray that Trish, in having her child, and in giving it the best of care, learns what real love is.

Lord, grant her this grace.