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.

Thank you, Jesus, for the good news about my health.  After coming back from Sloan, I was pleased to know that there is no new pleural effusion and that the CT scan looked good.  Not quite sure where this leaves me but I am clear to go back to work in the fall and will be on schedule for October to see when and if they have to move to the next steps.  It is good news and world we sense.

There is also wonderful news in that Dan and Regina are due to have another baby in march.  It is very early right now so please Lord protect this unborn child with your loving care and providence.  I wish they had a better financial scenario but that must be in your hands dear Lord.  I have been able to listen to more tapes from LightHouse Catholic Media and it is improving my understanding of you and of your planned for the Church.

I have been moving very quickly since I got the good news one week ago.  I if think that you want me to finish up the virtual materials so that Holy Apostle can take over teaching them.  I have also been working with Father Erasto about getting the materials to Africa and hopefully we can run some courses with Africa to in the fall.  I am actually eager about thinking about returning to work; I must work very differently and more efficiently.  I am trying to get the headset and speech recognition to work well.  I have been listening to Father Larry Richards about living in the divine will and according to the way he sees things, if I am serving and loving in the work I do then it must be at least part of your well for me.  I am excited about working on the virtual island today and creating it so that it can be an activity that others can use for their own in making their own islands more quickly.  I don't know if I have been foolish to have invested so much of the past 15 years of my life in working with virtual environments, but Lord, please help me if this is what you want me to do – I think it is.  I am happy to think I may be in your service for a bit longer.  Honestly, I had been looking into what I would do if I went through chemotherapy – what type of wig I would buy – and how I would use morphine to help me through those and times.  Those questions are still out there, but it seems you have given me a reprieve for several months before I must deal with them.

Please help me channel the excitement and I feel about the upcoming baby, about my work and my going back to work, and help me use my time well.

I am trying to sense where I stand with you, Jesus, and what you want me to do.  I am almost finished with the science and technology work and I have two months before my sabbatical is over.  On Monday I go to Sloan to see where I stand with the cancer.  I keep on thinking that you want a catholic media enterprise, the world needs it badly and today we lost the Supreme Court decision on marriage.  You know how much this will hurt your children Jesus.  But is that which you want me to do?  Part of me wants to write my memoirs and another part of me wants to write something about the situation in the world in general so that Darren can make good Entertainment Media from this.  I am feeling well and thank you for that lord.  It was good to see Teresa and Tommy and their family's visit tonight for lasagna.  I still feel part of the world and I think that this "dying from mesothelioma" seems to be really more of something I imagined then is something real.  I still don't know when the other shoe will drop.

I am getting close to you through my readings and through my extended visits to church.  I do feel enmeshed in a safe world of beautiful buildings, powerful sentiment, and a deeper faith.  I've realize that I am not a person of feeling and emotion.  I can not expect that you will reach me through those means.  But I am a person who can take long term steps towards long-term goals.  You helped me get a doctorate; you helped me write novels; you are helping me with the virtual reality (which is always very challenging); you will continue to help me I know.  I read St. Therese of Liseux and I see her child like the belief that you will always be with her.

Jesus, it was very good to see Tasha and her family.  She is really raising the children in the faith and they even came with me one day to daily mass.  Hopefully, she will avoid the problems that I had by not raising my older children in the faith.  I know you have forgiven me for that to the extent I can be forgiven in confession, but I will pay a constant reparation for those sins of omission and I will pray for all of my children and grandchildren to return to and live in the faith that you have given us.  I can most definitely see how this faith is helping me now as I face my own mortality.  However, for the past month I've been feeling physically much better and I received a call from my job about the fall.  I did let them know of my illness, but honestly, at this point I am feeling as though it is possible to return to work and be almost 100% of what I used to be.

But now I have a different "eye" as I look forward on my life.  Funny, all the times that we spend talking about the future – such as when I went to the airport recently, talking about how I am getting to be a better traveler.  I don't know how much more time you'll give me for traveling.  It seems our life is full of projections forward and our very language and learning is about giving us what we need for these future experiences.  And I don't know what they're going to be.  Now that I ever really did know but I thought I did – I thought I would be around at least until my late eighties.  Now it's a big question mark.

I have been able to do more reading about you Jesus and the book by the Japanese author Endo is giving me more insights into the life that you lead and the culture in which you lived.  I can't know or understand it all but I can see you moving through time and history and even geography as you work towards Jerusalem and your death for us.  I try to meditate and make You the center of my life, but this life intervenes – such as last week when we are in California – your presence seems to disappear into the background.  I also know from past experience that when the sickness takes over again, I lose my ability to pray.  Therefore, I am trying at this point to anticipate and store up the graces that I will need to get through the "hour of my death" which I know will have the greatest pain and the biggest fear in my life.  (You're well aware of my claustrophobia and fears of not breathing.)  I was reading St. Faustina last night who was well assured that those last moments she would be spending with you directly.  Please be there to help me through and to let my life be an example to those who need you, particularly to those to whom I did not bring your faith when I should have.  Bring something good from my death.  I know that from a bodily sense I will be shriveled, panting, looking lifeless and homely.  That bothers me although I know that should not be a priority.  I still wish to be attractive for my husband and I know that isn't going to be possible.  As you can see, dear Jesus, I am still very much in this world and I need your help to lift me out of it just the way St. Therese speaks of in her diaries.  Lift me out of the silly little old lady thinking that I have and align me with the thinking that you want.  I know I will have no control over the endpoint – none of us do, but I never really thought about it.  I have prayed many rosaries and hopefully will have your help as a transition on eternal life with you.  Help me to be the person that you want me to be; give me the grace please to make this happen.

Dear Jesus, things may be accelerating from the disease standpoint - some fevers, some night sweating, some shortness of breath.  Up till now, most of the discomfort has been from the treatments.

Help me to know what to do with my time and how to address any fear and pain.  Reading the book on St. Teresa with her autobiography and other materials (letters, reminiscences, papal documents) has given me insights into the little way of turning all to you even when not feeling holy or in your light.  I know you are there and you have created this pathway for me, but I still feel scared and unsure.   I don't like pain; I fear pain.  But I will try my best to trust.  Please help me with the grace that I need to be in and stay in your will.  Jesus I trust in you.  Maybe I will see you sooner then I thought.   I was feeling so well for a while that I thought the disease might have been a mistake.

Help me to know you in my travels.   I am still trying to finish some courses and I talked to Meg at work and we are full speed ahead for teaching comes September.  Guide me as to what will be your will for then.

Love you.

Jesus, it has been some time since we talked.  Darren's dad died and there was much preparation, consternation, celebration, and worry with his funeral and burial.   You had granted him a full life, despite the Alzeheimer's of his last days.  Hopefully / prayerfully, the breakthrough in getting a priest to him, even though his was then in the throes of dying from a stroke and lack of feeding, you were able to break through to his heart and gain from him the repentance that you needed.  Who but you can judge someone?  Who but you understanding what the "hour of your death" really means.  In my micromanaging of the world, I could see Dad  now praying for his family from the other side.  How do you break through to the New Age group of which my mother-in-law belongs? I could see myself now at the family gatherings after the funeral worried about so much other then just the passage of a soul -- did I look OK?  (especially since Darren's first wife (from whom his marriage was legitimately annulled) came to the service) was I projecting holy vibs (they all knew that I was dying too but I tried to show faith and hope (but did I come across as pompous and silly?)  did I forever look at the photos from the funeral and look to see if / how I looked compared to the rest?  How long vanity lasts in me.  How and when will I learn to follow your light?

I am feeling considerably better -- I take 3 mile walks in the morning and much of the healing after the removal of the drainage catheter from my chest seems to have happened.  I am enjoying the time with the sabbatical and the reduction in the stress of work.   I still thing about returning to work in the fall and wonder if / how I can do that.  Please be sure to tap me hard on the head with what I am to do job wise; I have a hard time hearing your voice at time.   I did get to the healing mass at the Divine Mercy chapel and I could feel your peace.  But your voice gets hard to hear so quickly for me.  I am (at Danny's recommendation) getting more time in front of you in t your churches; but much seems to get in the way.  His (Danny's) point is that I can not go wrong if I am spending more time in our presence. That is true.

Today we go to Roxbury to get some paperwork signed.  I have more tapes from Lighthouse Catholic Media that I hope to listen to on the way.  Please help them inspire Darren and me.  I still hope that he starts the Catholic media company but I have been pushing too hard - he resists and it might be all about my will and not yours.  Please guide me there.  I am still trying to manage things from this side and the other side of the grave.   Please help me learn to see . . . and to trust. . . your way Lord.

Thank you for giving me my wonderful life and family to this point; help me with the fears that keep coming up. 

Much has happened Good Lord.  Praise to you Jesus, but I am feeling a lot better.  Since the catheter came out about a month ago I have been able to get around walking and I seem to be recovering much of my energy and strength.  I still have soreness but I am feeling almost the "New Normal. " what is troubling me though is the deposition.  I have been trying to reach the priest about having a longer confession.  This will be complicated because I don't know whether my words were justified with in the context of a legal setting or whether I was lying.  I have been waiting for over a week for confirmation of the meeting for confession.  Father got back to me right away when I emailed him for time and said that he would hear me but even after a second e-mail I am waiting to hear from him.  Jesus, please do not punish me or my family at this point.  I don't know whether I have to drop the lawsuit or whether this is OK and I do need to have your approvals from your minister the priest.

I have been able to move closer to you in other ways through my church and my devotions at home and through my walk around and praying the rosaries as I am able to start most mornings with this nicer weather by doing a 4 mile walk around my neighborhood praying the rosary as they go.  I'm still very distracted and prior but I am getting better.  I've been spending more time in church before or after mass but it is always very noisy – at least no easy for me who seems to need to have absolute quiet to be able to focus.  Actually, focusing is always difficult for me.  But I do at least tried to spend time with you Jesus.  I have been reading more of Fulton sheen's "life of Christ" and it keeps me more and more aware of who you are in the context of history and genealogy.  I've also finished most of the St. Therese of Lisieux and having more than just what a biography has been a huge boon.  There are papal documents that followed shortly after her canonization and just recently it was the 90th year since her canonization.  At the end there is a collection of her small statements to the novices and they are most enlightening.  To read Terese who is a truly unique individual and her simple and different way of seeing the challenges of life gives much hope.

I still am fearful about my health.  Generally I feel pretty well.  But I'd read what will happen and how I will fall apart at some point.  My job called me.  I have three more months before have to go back to work and one of my colleagues is leaving so I will have to pick up some new courses.  I will be letting them know soon about my own health issues.  I am putting whether I return to work into your hands.  I have fears about losing my salary.  I will never be able to get another job at my age after I and better – are at least more able to work.  So I don't want to lose the job.  But I have been enjoying not having to be under such pressure of getting to meetings and to work all the time.  Since I do work online I have the greater flexibility.  But I will be under more pressure.  I put that in your hands Jesus.  I want to be fair to my job and to the students that the school has lined up.

Please help me with all of these uncertainties.  I know you will.  I'm looking forward to taking my morning walks with rosary beads - looking forward to a walk with you and your mother.

It became more real yesterday, Jesus; and I am scared.  The visit to Sloan was not as optimistic (reading between the lines of the very terse doctor) and I will be re-evaluated in 2 months with possible surgery lying ahead.  The optimism of the "clinical trials" is starting to fade.

My problem is that I have been slipping back into "the world" more and more.  We just had the funeral for Darren's dad and there were so many worldly aspects that I have been away from my times of peace and growth.  But I am seeing that I am not as focused on you Lord; I have been focused on the world.   I am not sure if going to work in the fall will be an option at all.   Help me draw closer to you Lord, and while staying in the world, being focused on the things that are eternal and on the things you want me to do with my time.  Let me get back into the light of the path to you.  Walk before me Lord or let me walk by your side.  Either way.  Help me to see you.

Moving more and more back into the "real" world, as my recovery from the biopsy and viral infusion become more past history.   I feel like my-old-self to some degree, but more bewildered; where do I go from here?   I am reading St. Therese's Autobiography once more - skipping around in the book.   I envy and admire her simplicity and joy; she reports, on the pages that I have read recently, about how God works through the everyday life of the convent and how He love and forgives her.   She has a freshness and a childlike joy in everything she does.   I tend towards pondering and overthinking, such as my concern about what I should be doing now with my life.  I want Therese's clarity and seeing God in all her actions.

It seems I have to embrace my situation - for now, becoming healthier but wondering what lies beyond -- and assume that God values my life "as is."   I am supposed to be a science/tech educator, as well as a mother and wife.   I have an opportunity with HACS to assemble short courses and I need to stay devoted to that, and focused on that.   Or, so I think.   Jesus, would you please let me know when that is not pleasing to you?

We are working through the funeral arrangements for Darren's Dad.   I need to keep him and the O'Connor family in my deepest prayers.  They need to see you as their Lord and Savior. 

I am slipping into the doldrums of recovering health and taking back all the fears and worries.  The nobility of a quick exit and the sadness of my own death is slipping away as I am becoming more able to resume daily life.  I still don’t know the ultimate prognosis; in about two weeks I will return to Sloan to get a sense of my future.  But I know the mechanics of my illness are subsiding.

But dear Jesus how do I keep focused on the things of the next world?  I have concerns about my children and the closeness to them can almost bring them into a stronger relief.  I know you’re admonition about the things in this world are not simply for us when we’re dying; it is meant for us at all times.  Guide me and the path that you want me to follow, please.

My miseries and my fears are most evident.  I awoke in a sort of panic, afraid of being alone.  I still feel very well.  What will happen to my strength of character as my health deteriorates more?  The readings help, the Divine Office sets me on the right path.  On my own I am nothing.  I become a bucket of fears and anxieties.  Usually, I know where my life is going, at least I think so.  Now I don’t know.  I dreamt about getting paychecks – these long printed forms that were handed out to me in a somewhat ceremonial fashion.  At the end I got two final checks about $5000 each that closed me out of that job.  Somehow, in my dream, I was working at IBM again.  I became aware though that I no longer have a job and that I was at the end of the line.  I know I am thinking about this often in my present situation.  What will happen to my future if I don’t go back to the school?  I know that I present job is my last hope of employment.  My dream certainly seem to be about figuring out what I was to do with my life.

Thank God for your word.  Being able to orient myself with the Divine Office and with readings from the “Imitation of Christ” I am able to quell the fears that come from within me.  Seeing my own nothingness in such relief certainly is a wakeup call to mortality.  Hope is the only way that I can survive.  I believe through my faith in the world to come and in you Good Lord Jesus.  I know that you will be there for me.  How this will play out I have no understanding.  You keep that veiled from us.  But I do believe and hope that your promises will be true.  Although the world around me often laughs at my belief in you Jesus, I hope you will be there.  How you will look, how you will approach me I don’t know; but I hope you will be there.

Joanne Wagner came yesterday and was a great inspiration.  She is very practically grounded and spiritually oriented and I grew from the words that she spoke.  Thank you for putting these people in my life.  Protect my whole family please.  We all need help in different ways; I know you care about them even more than I do.  Protect them and all the children of the world – now, in the past, and in the future.  They’re all your children Lord.

As I turned back to my sabbatical efforts today, hopefully, please direct my efforts and time working within Your Will, Lord.  I am trying to find the Divine Will in my life.  I know that without it my efforts are futile and silly.  I spent many years working in teaching in ways that I think have been futile.  Guide me in ways and I can assemble what I do know and put forward to the use of you and your world.  Science and technology are my fields; help me bring them to the world in ways to serve you lord.  Thank you for being willing to forgive me and to allow me the grace of receiving communion.  I couldn’t get to church yesterday and I missed you.  I’m looking forward to seeing you to Dear Jesus in Holy Communion.

It was good to see Danny for lunch.  A chaotic time at the nursing home for my mother earlier, but I was able to get an anointing from Father L'Arche who was there.  Good to be part of a network of holy people (the Suarez's were there too). 

Danny and I talked about Living in the Divine Will - this recent Amazon-delivered book on Luisa Piccaretta was the jumping off point.   How do you know if you are in the Divine Will or your will?   Since I have been feeling better physically, I am wandering back to my old work.   There might be possibilities to work with more Catholic teachers on science and I am now very intrigued again in putting forth my science inquiry ideas.   I was reading the Breviary (not sure if I am at the right spot though - I never am sure of that), and I had an insight about Jesus and the New Jerusalem - those of us working forward in our lives to bring forth the Kingdom of God.   Can my work in science education be part of those efforts - Dear Lord, please lead and guide me there.   You know I love that type of work - but is it my will or yours? 

Dan did have a good suggestion about visiting my mother more at Teresian and visiting with more of the seniors at her location.  They are lonely and could use some time from someone who cares.   He suggested asking to say a decade of the Rosary with them.   I need to start making that a regular part of my journey.

Dad (Daniel Patrick O'Connor) is getting near death and Darren was able to get a priest to come in for the Last Rites.   Dear Lord, prepare Daniel your servant for a holy death.   We wander far in a very worldly world; help Daniel on his path to You, Lord.

Praise the Lord!!!  Yesterday I was able to complete my reading of read Dan's book on "The Crown and Completion of All Sanctity" and it was important, worthy, well conceived, and thorough in its documentation and citation.  I could see his talent and his inspiration.  As I struggled to understand the "divine will" in my own life, learning about Louisa Piccaretta and the theological implications of her work.  I think I can help him by passing along some editorial and organizational comments.  I plan to meet him to day at the nursing home and share some of those thoughts.

I also was able to connect with Dr. Sebastian Mahfood and I told him about my "terminal" situation and my desire to share my work.  He already had some ideas about science applications that could possibly work with seminarians and priests and programs that they want to develop.  I hope I can make some progress here too.  Funny, though, as I try to dictate this message I keep on having coughing spells.  I don't know if God will that be do this work the way I want to – thus it might be Eileen's well and not God's will.  I will have to see.   Honestly, I am finding more reasons to live; is it the too-human part of me that wants to do something that is "appreciated."   Jesus, please help me to see and know your will here.   Thank you, Lord. 

Very human emotions took over and almost choked me.  A deep sadness about those I would be leaving, missing them tremendously despite the foibles and frustrations they bring into my life at this point.  And in my own ego came in too – I would soon be forgotten.  I know even from my brother jimmy who I loved and missed, life went on.  He became the picture that someone brought to family events and eventually the picture stopped coming.  He was often remembered and cited that he was not any longer part of the interactions.  I know that will happen to me.  As I went to bed I kept on crying and crying need it so I couldn't breathe properly.  Then I had the usual "panic attack" of – I can't breathe.  But this time I realize that my destiny was moving in that direction which panicked me even more.

I can reconcile all of this, to Jesus.  I get up and started praying the rosary.  The breathing came back and although I couldn't resolve the human emotions that I have been troubled with, I was able to assimilate it into the bigger picture of the world that I would be moving into.  I have no option but to trust in you Jesus.  Every human emotion leads to a dead end or pain.  It does not sound the most noble, but I have absolutely no recourse but to trust in you dear lord.   I am working on my science education materials, and they can be a wonderful, or is it awful, distraction.  I enjoyed pulling together the pieces and thinking that somebody might use the someday.  But is it what you want of me dear lord?  Now that it is quiet again in the house, I am able to start integrating prayer, exercise, and writing about the science materials.  I guess I will ask and dear lord to make it clear as they move ahead with this is really what you want me to do.  Father Erasto did write to me and wondered how I was doing.  I wrote him back about the science education work.  I still haven't heard back from him but I hope he can use my materials.

I read another article about mesothelioma and it gave me a much worse prognosis.  I have no idea how much time I have left and I don't know how to use it well.  It's a strange place to begin.  There is a comfort of thinking that the toil and travails of this life will not exist much longer.  But then I miss those that I love.  Whatever is, it is totally in your hands, Lord.  Please give me the grace, the strength, and the fortitude to do what you want me to do.  And of course the knowledge and wisdom to know what that really is.  I pray that I will be with you completely before too long dear lord.  I fear the transition in purgatory – is Danny right?  Can I possibly avoid it?  I fear the loneliness and pain of being purged of my sins that I cannot become free from in this earth.  Help me to know how to move past them.  I know that gossiping and fear are chains that hold me back now.  Help me to see the right light and move past those in this life.  Allow me to know how I can offer prayers for my family and for the world.  I think I reached a turning point last night in understanding how powerless I really am even against my very own human and frail emotions and the "reality" within which I live.  I need your grace dear Jesus.  On my own I constantly fall on my face.

Please help me, Darren, my family.  And of course help the world.  Help those who have no one and no one praying for them and no one wishing them into heaven.   Part of my ministry be to help those.  And I don't want to forget the souls in purgatory.  Aside from a catholic church I don't think anyone is remembering them.  Help them so that they may move onto their internal Glory with you Lord.  Now on to my work.