Prophecy & Salvation History (According to my 6 year old.)

Retirement

Swirling times for sure. My direct family stories became too "personal" so I am  now shifting into a more general focus on my own growth and movement toward Holiness and sanctity. I did finally retire and move to Florida. So many of my ambitions for Catholic Education were stymied and my own health has continued to be precarious. Presently I am waiting to have a biopsy to determine if an unhealed wound is the result of losing a breast implant, a return of mesothelioma, or a return of breast cancer. I have a blanket acceptance of "God's will" but I am asking as a human being for the biopsy to be clear and the wound to be healed through a skin graft. But we all know who has the final word.

But many journeys have occurred and I have had to face my own physical weaknesses that have come from major treatments from two large cancers and now early stage leukemia. But the Lord has been teaching me along the way and I have had the benefit of a wonderful local church in Florida and the readings from many different solid Catholic authors and MUCH PRAYERFUL SUPPORT.. Soon I will have 12 grandchildren and I have one great grandson. Not everything is aligned with God’s ordering but the Lord can write straight with crooked lines so I continue to offer my deepest prayers and physical suffering to Sweet Jesus to implore His Mercy and Redemption for my family and the world. .

I must confess to a wonderful experience over the past week with Holy Rosary and really starting to understand the trust we must place in God and His Will. Prayer is difficult for me. My mind is so flooded with distractions. I am trying to use Kindle books and the note-taking feature so I can monitor my own growth and perhaps someday share it with others. 

My intention is to continue to return here to update my spiritual growth. Right now I must thank the Lord Jesus Christ for some logistical improvements on my move to Florida while still maintaining a residence in New York. But I will primarily be focusing on the prayer journey and asking the Good Lord Jesus with the intercession of His Holy Mother to guide me and my family as we sojourn through our finite time in this temporary location while looking forward to the Eternal Life beyond.

 

Many moons, worlds, world events, and journeys have transpired since I wrote last here, Dear Jesus. I must say that my perspective of You has been so deepened by watching The Chosen, the mini TV series that tries to explore the world you tried to the complexities of you as both human and both God. I’ll try to catch up on that later. In the meantime for any who might read this, yes, I am still alive. I went through a second clinical trial which removed the outside of my lung, one of my diaphragms (and replaced with Gortex) and a whole bunch of my lymph nodes; put me through chemotherapy for any stray cancer cells that may have gotten loose; and then subjected me to Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy for 6 weeks where I was bombarded with computer guided x-rays to hopefully remove any other offending cancer cells. I’m still technically and medically “hopeless” but four years have transpired since that draconian regimen and I am still here. So, thank you Dear Jesus, thank you to the many good doctors at Sloan Memorial Cancer Center and to the overwhelming prayerful support I have received. I have continued to work online and am looking towards retirement within the next year or two. MUCH has transpired with family, life, and fledgling attempts at starting a Catholic network for education purposes — little success there to date. I hope to be returning here on a bimonthly basis to continue imploring you Jesus for your help with the challenges I face and to seek your guidance as to how to bring the joy and hope of life now and in the future in heaven to more around me.

Thankful - but a mission

My blogging and my journal have both been on hold. Since April 2018 I seem to have been getting progressively better. Strange because they discovered a large blood clot, a pulmonary embolism, going into my lungs. But after being put on Xarelto , and anticoagulant, I seem to be improving. The chronic cough has been subsiding and, although I start feeling quite poorly if I don't have a lot of fluids in my system, I've been able to move closer to a normal life.

Most of the time this has brought me great joy. Sometimes it brings me fear. With my ego there was a part of me that figured I would not get to the issue of Alzheimer's or senility. Now I wonder. I am moving towards a 72nd birthday in September and still working and still enjoying the work.

But things have been changing in my relationship to God and in my relationship to his Blessed Mother. I have been reading Danny's book on the Louisa Picaretta and the Divine Will (available on Amazon as a free Kindle link). And things have been changing. Mary was no longer simply the Jewish mother who walked on the earth with her son. (An image that I "liked" but had its limitations.) Mary was now becoming that pure being who was created by God with a totally unique and special message. She was the human being who was to embody the Divine Spirit right from her conception. I cannot articulate all but as I pray the rosary each day (when I am on my treadmill to keep my lungs active), I see even more richness in those ministries that I follow. And as I get more involved in the virtual-reality technologies I can see ways that her message and that of Her Son can be brought out through this media. But I am so far behind getting there because of the tremendous obstacles and learning curves. I am blessed though in that it is part of my work and my job as an academic-- to teach others how to use these tools -- so I keep on learning more as I can.

Susie had been helpful initially with moving me into these virtual-reality spaces for teaching religious education. She has been struggling with the technology and I realized that I need to move that forward myself. It does seem every time I tried to make one forward step there are more steps to do. But if Jesus wants this to happen, if it is His Will, then please make it happen Jesus. I would most certainly like this to materialize but I know my own limitations.

So Jesus, the Blessed Mother, the Holy Spirit, and God The Father please guide my work. I am excited about bringing a tribute forward to you, but I also see my t0o-big ego at work as well. I do thank you for the extended life you've been giving me. I don't know when you were going to call in my number but I am getting more peace and I am breathing a lot more easily both figuratively and literally.

Returning to the fold — where was God?

I moved away from my blogging, Dear Lord. I compiled a systematic journal every several months as events accumulated; something with the more aesthetic and outward-bound perspective. I'll eventually put the link in this blog.

But after request from my son, I figured it was good to return here to detail the journey. The medical has been up-and-down. The first clinical trial with the smallpox virus worked for a while but by the summer of 16, I needed to go for something more radical. I get into a second clinical trial where they remove the plural lining of my lung, replaced my diaphragm with Gore-Tex, remove disease lymph nodes (the mesothelioma had spread to stage III), and then set me on a for treatment chemotherapy (for which I lost a lot of my here but not all of it), and then six weeks of very intense radiation treatment with something known as Intensity Modulated Radiation Treatment. It's been a year since that ended and I go for three month CAT scans and have had mixed results. I get to blood transfusions this past summer, it seems as though the cancer is at bay for the time but my lung is having problems and is not functioning at full capacity (which has led to other complications), and I have been humbled into submission over my own fears that erupted as I had bouts with limited breathing. Much that could be said about the medical; some of that will be in the journal.

But the journey that I needed to summarize here was my journey into fear and godlessness. Thank you dear Lord that you didn't leave me in there long. I certainly was not the St. Therese who could report about her dark night of the soul but still at the end speak hopefully about how she trusted You and you you are really there even though she couldn't feel or even believe in you at that point. Well, I did not have that nobility.

It all began with some stressful personal situations going on, coupled with the cold that I had caught that appear to have settled into my lungs. The usual chronic cough that I had (which there appeared to be no medical relief from) had now moved into a parking, rumbling cough. Tasha said it was probably some type of bronchitis.

Well, I have learned that it couldn't cry. Or if I did then I couldn't breathe. It was probably somewhat psychosomatic. I'd been sitting on the couch ruminating with Darren about a distressing event. I started to cry. Rather suddenly though, I could not catch my breath. It was as though there were something stuck in my throat that I could not swallow (probably stuck in my larynx). I jumped off the couch started running into the kitchen area. I could get no air; I could get no words out; I could not choke, I could not cry I could not BREATHE. I had something like that happened during the summer and it made me want to run. I wanted to get help. My mind told me I had 4 minutes before I would be dead. Silly rather, I decided whether I should lie down. But that didn't seem to make sense. By now Darren had sent something was wrong and was following me. I was waving my arms madly. Eventually (I'm still here right), I did start getting in some air. I could gasp. I could start to breathe and life returned.

In happened once more within about a week. The cold and coughing continued. I called the doctor at Sloan and she said it was not all "in my head," and she put me on a prednisone treatment. As of this writing, which is about two weeks after I started the prednisone, I am breathing somewhat normally for my handicapped condition and I am less in a panic mode.

But what I want to reflect on here in the blog is my journey into Hell in my return to a somewhat tranquil middle-world. Good Lord I don't know why you let me go there except that it was something I needed to learn. You weren't there. The world was too bright and too clinical. It was sterile and machinelike. There was no air, there were no people, there was a simplified machine interface sterility. Why did you let me see this? My mind focused on what if I was completely wrong? What is the atheists were right? Or what if something worst and easiest — at least then there's nothing is — what if I had to live in this empty sterility forever?

I began to reflect on my own self-sufficiency and arrogance. Just weeks before I had been glibly talking to Evelyn about her sister's fight with cancer. In a rather self-satisfied Pharisaical way I was the noble, holy-lady who did not need to take anxiety medications or visit therapists. I had things under control because God was on my side. But you took me down a few notches. You showed me that I was as afraid to die as the next person. You showed me that it couldn't be all about me.

I'm still afraid. I'm afraid of what will happen at the end time — whether it comes about from the radiation damage to my long that they seem to be experiencing now or whether it comes about from the cancer or whether you take me into your bosom another way. I need the good people in this world to help me through. I need you with the honesty that I can muster and with the grace that you can spare. I definitely can't do this alone. And thank you for giving me the time and experiences to know where I need spiritual as well as physical healing.

Sitting in the Holy Hour at St. Mary's I could sense the time and eternity through which Our Lord has traveled, from the beginning of time through the Jews and into the Christian era.   He is with us in time and in the relationships that He has made available to us on our journey.   A peace filled my soul.

While I continue to feel well but my dear great nephew is dying at this very moment - declared brain dead and soon to pass on to the next life completely.  My wonderful niece, his mother, is a model of grief and holiness, just like the Blessed Mother.   May You Lord and Your Blessed Mother be with the Suarez family.  And, dear Sebastian will you ask God to help our struggling world?

Feeling healthy and strong.  I have been able to do my 4 mile walk most mornings and I bring my rosary beads with me.  The idea came from Danny's blog posting about walking with rosaries after receiving communion.  It almost seems as though the diagnosis might have been a mistake.  Or maybe Jesus, you want me here a little longer.  I was able to continue to work on both the science education course and the virtual environments course.  They are in pretty good shape so I hope others can run them at some of your seminary schools.  There is a great need for education and other parts of the world – and Father Erasto is helping me there – and I hope that Holy Apostles College and Seminary can embrace the virtual reality courses.  After receiving the "good news" from Sloan, I have felt more purposeful about moving forward on those two projects.  I have five weeks left for the sabbatical and I want to use it well, dear Jesus.  I am actually looking forward to returning to work, it makes me feel as though I still have some value in this world.  And I have been able to catch up with family and friends and not feeling sort and under the weather.  Thank you for this time.

I also received a relic yesterday from Danny from Padre Pio.  It is the gauze from around his sacred wounds.  I know this comes from the stigmata that you graced Padre Pio with.  I have had the benefit of so many prayers, intercessions through communions and novenas offered, relics around my house, and my own expanding prayer life.  I feel more and more enveloped in your world, dear Lord.

I am reading another book, recommended by Tasha, about fighting cancer.  This is from a doctor who had cancer himself.  He makes good points about the ways we can behaviorally control our cancers.  His points, I think, stretch the findings that he claims are from science, but I think is advice is solid.  But he only approaches religion, for as far as I've gotten into the book right now, from the perspective of meditation or Buddhism.  It seems everyone is still afraid to speak your name in public, Jesus.  I have been toying with the idea of a book about my own journey that I would call "Unfinished."  Can you guide me as to whether this is something you want me to do with the end of my sabbatical time?  As you well know, I have been keeping notes through this blog and through a note to Darren that will be given to him on my death – or at least I hope it will be.  The I note that writing a book would keep me motivated and upbeat, but is it me or is it you, Jesus?

By the way, I did get to see the CT scan data from Sloan.  I can't understand it all but it does seem that there has been some reduction in the hardening of my pleural lining which I think is good news.  Are you giving me more time?  I am feeling a peace.  For while I was really getting into what I call my "wigs and morphine" phase.  I was projecting out to the end and trying to figure how I could be safe.  Could I save my appearance?  Could I save myself from pain?  Could this saving from pain be done with my mind still somewhat intact?  That seems to be melting with a better news and hopefully with your grace dear Jesus.  I think I will start some of the writing, but will ask for your guidance and direction along the way.  Please let me know if that is from you or from me.