Gulf Pine Catholic • March 13, 2026 7 I was travelling withmy twenty-six year old niece to do some gardening at her aunt’s house. As we travelled along, discussing many topics, she asked me, “Can I ask you a big favor?” It was about her high school friend, David. “Would you mind saying a special prayer for him?” I assured her that I would. Following his high school graduation, David decided to move to the London area to pursue a theater degree with the hope of becoming an actor. A few years later, his world began to crumble slowly. He was diagnosed as having a brain tumor that indicated it was cancer. Following months of treatment, the prognosis didn’t seem to warrant any optimism. During his visits home, my niece would visit him and try to encourage and support him. Now as we travelled along, my niece said, “David’s cancer has spread to his spine. There is no hope. All treatments have stopped.. His parents want him to come home. The doctors indicate that there is nothing more they can do and that surgery is not an option. He wants to come home to die.” As our journey continued in the car, we wrestled with her question. It wasn’t a time for pious platitudes or pat answers about God’s will. Rather, it was an opportunity to probe more deeply one of the great mysteries of life and its many layers of “whys.” I shared with her some of the wisdom I had gleaned from my own years of ministry through my interaction with parishioners through their losses and achievements, through their joys and sorrows. It wasn’t a time for pat answers or assuring words that she would get through his immanent death. It was more an opportunity to plant some seeds, assuring her that no words of mine will take away her future fears and pertinent pain. David did come home to be with his family. In the weeks that followed, the cancer spread rapidly as he lay in the hospital bed becoming totally paralyzed. He died on February12. It all seems so cruel. Here was David, in the prime of his life and his dream of being involved in the theater and becoming an actor shattered. It all seemed so cruel. Love and loss are the two sides of life’s coins. They are both imbedded into our DNA. The more we love involves embracing the greatest danger of the inevitability of loss. Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that “Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try and find anything, since leaving the gap unfulfilled preserves the bond between us. It is nonsense to say God fills the gap. He does not fill it but keeps it empty so that communion with another may be kept alive even at the cost of pain” I often wondered about the marriage vows. They indicate “for better for worse; for richer, for poorer in sickness and in health.” Why do the first two vows begin with the positive and end with the negative, while the third and last begins with the negative and ends with the positive? Is it an indication of the two strange bedfellows that embrace the bedrooms of life and life itself? It reminds me that a sense of sadness pervades all of life and of the heart. Even the happiest times in life are tinged with sadness. Yet, there is no such thing as a vacuum in life or in the heart. Even our elementary study of science reminds us that nature abhors a vacuum. Yet, when the time is ripe, something begins to percolate, within the “gap,” within the “vacuum” that begins to open the door to seeing the death of that person, the loss of that friendship or the disappointment emanating from a series of “has-been” losses that can lead to new discoveries and perspectives from the pain of loss. In the meantime, as my niece walked with David through his final days, she will begin to realize the implications of compassion, to “suffer with” him; realizing that the vacuum created by his death cannot be filled with pious platitudes or flippantly proclaiming that his death is God’s will. All I can do is to be there for her, to listen to her anger and her questions, her “whys” and her “how comes,” and provide a shoulder that she can lean on or cry on when needed. In the last analysis, my thoughts are drawn to the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem.” The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what has passed away Or what is yet to be Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in Father Michael Tracey is retired and lives in Ireland. He can be contacted by email at mtracey1@ bellsouth.net. His website is www.michaeltracey.net David’s departure Father Tracey VOLUNTEERS NEEDED Bethel Free Health Clinic in Biloxi is in immediate need of volunteers to assist with data entry and records management. On-thejob training is available. Clinic days and hours are Tues./Thurs., 8 -11 a.m. For more information or to volunteer, please call (228) 594-3640 or email bethelkatclinic@gmail.com. Across the Pond Evening of Intercessory Prayer Mark your calendars and please join us in praying the Rosary and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Monday, March 23, at 6:30 p.m. in the St. Alphonsus Church in Ocean Springs. Last month we talked about generational healing family trees and some behavioral patterns we may have possibly inherited. Please remember to bring/return both your family tree forms this month!! We will focus now on the power of our tongues. many of the curses in our family tree have come through the words that we say about ourselves or the words that others have pronounced over our lives. We all carry a responsibility in the words we choose, there is importance in using them to uplift and inspire, from the power to heal to the power to harm, the Bible is filled with wisdom about the impact of our speech. Our words can snare or trap us and form a barrier that prevents God’s blessings from entering into our lives. The Rosary is one of the most powerful weapons God gives to mankind. Let us pray and ask our Blessed Mother to intercede for us and our families. She is our greatest intercessor! Please mark your calendars and join us in prayer!!
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