Grandpa always teased me about we Diocesan priests who preach too long…well sorry Grandpa, that you have to sit through one more, but I can’t miss this opportunity knowing that you’re a captive audience.
“But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead… but they are in peace.”
They are in peace.
Monday night we celebrated Tuesday’s feast of our Lady of Guadalupe at my parish of Saint Joseph in Bowling Green with great festivity. A candlelit rosary procession to the Church, mariachi music, mañanitas, delicious food, Mass, and hearts full of joy as we celebrated the Virgin Mother of God appearing to Juan Diego and the subsequent conversion of nine million souls to God. The miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance came at a time that thousands of souls had left the body of Christ, breaking his Body, the Church into fractions because of the Protestant Reformation. Our Lady spoke the truth of God and the unity of his Church into a people torn apart by division, by human sacrifice and thus brought peace, and vibrancy of life to a world crying out for it.
Juan Diego was worried about many things as he passed by the mountain of Tepeyac on that chilly December morning to visit his sick uncle Bernardino. He didn’t want to stop to see the Virgin Morena, so he walked on the opposite side, but Mary does as she always does. She comes just as her Son did at His Incarnation into the abyss of human suffering. She comes and meets the people where they are and points them to Her Son, that He might bring them life and joy. So Juanito Dieguito tried to avoid her, but Our Lady came and met him where He was on the other side of the mountain and she said, “Juanito, Juanito, Mi Juan Dieguito, listen and understand, my littlest son, let nothing frighten and afflict you or trouble your heart…am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my mantle? Are you not here in the crossing of my arms?”
The Mother of God’s words to Juanito spoke to my heart as I knelt in church Monday night and prayed for Grandpa. I let my mind wander in my prayer, giving thanks to God for the many different memories I had with him. Melting those stupid pennies out of the wax fishbowl in his stove on the back porch. Sitting on his knee…or as we called him, “Our comfy chair” and laughing as he entertained us with stories of Slim and Swimming Sally. Teaching Brody and I how to change our first tire on the old boars nest camper. Early morning breakfasts at the Hoop in Wink in Ursa, singing with him in the funeral choir here at Saint Francis, travels out West with grandkids, cutting vegetables for Grandma’s veggie soup at the kitchen table, sitting on the picnic bench with Grandma Carrie, fishing and fileting catfish, giving Him the Anointing of the Sick, bringing our Lord in the Holy Eucharist to him that Friday morning after Thanksgiving and having a long talk about patience and forgiveness. Telling Him on the phone two weeks ago, how thankful I was for Him being my Grandfather and him telling me he was thankful as well but he didn’t want to cry so we better hang up the phone.
All of these memories and more swirled around my mind as I had my chat with Our Lady of Guadalupe about Grandpa on Monday night. “But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead… but they are in peace.”
I asked Grandpa during that last visit if there was anything he really wanted. He shared with me how he wished to be at peace with others and that they could be at peace with him. Its no secret to anyone that knew Stan Musholt, that at times he could be a hard man. Ornery, stubborn, obstinate at times, but at his core, (And I do believe this) a man of deep faith and love. We all say and do things that we shouldn’t in this life. We all sin, we hurt others, but what matters is that we seek pardon. We seek forgiveness. And we know that in life, because of how silly we humans are we don’t always have the strength, the words, the courage to own up to our faults, but praise God the Church gives us the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help us seek to do better. I’ll never forget the witness it was to myself as a young boy of coming to Mass with his Grandparents on Saturday morning and lining up to go to confession with them. Mercy and forgiveness are not just given, they have to be received.
And so as I thought of that last real conversation with Grandpa I thought about the areas of his life in which He was seeking forgiveness. The people he shared with me that he wished he could have taken things back that he had said or done. I have prayed for years for healing, for mercy, for forgiveness within our family. And over these past three weeks I have offered Mass after Mass after Mass for Grandpa, for Grandma’s strength these days, and for the peace and forgiveness Grandpa was asking for. And as my heart hurt and the tears came down my face as I looked upon the beautiful face of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I heard the words she spoke to Juan Diego speak to me as well. “listen and understand, my littlest son, let nothing frighten and afflict you or trouble your heart…am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my mantle? Are you not here in the crossing of my arms?”
And so I spoke to her, the mother who knows her children. I spoke to the mother who wants all of her children to become saints to be with Her Son in Heaven worshipping God together in that eternal Wedding Liturgy, the Mother who meets us always in the midst of our suffering, “Momma, if Grandpa has received what he has been praying for, please, please take Him home to see your Son face to face. Don’t let him be in pain anymore. Keep Him under your mantle. Hold him in your arms, and keep Him safe.”
That night I had a dream about Grandpa. And I never remember dreams, so this one was special. I had a dream about riding up to the farm with Him as we often did. I was a little boy sitting next to Him and Brody in that little Kuester pick-up truck and singing our family song to the Blessed Mother, “On this Day, O beautiful Mother.” We had a wonderful day at the farm together and I woke with tears running down my face, knowing that he was gone. And as my phone began to ring at 4:17am, I knew that it was my Mom before I looked at it…letting me know that she had just got the call that Grandpa had passed away and asking for prayers. So I got up and went in the chapel outside my bedroom, and knelt before our Eucharistic Lord in the Tabernacle and began to pray for Grandpa’s soul. I didn’t want my sobs to wake my pastor up since we both had been up late for Guadalupe celebrations so I eventually grabbed my coat and walked across the street to church to do the only thing I could think to do in this moment. To offer a piece of bread and a chalice of wine as I offered Mass for the repose of Grandpa’s soul and in thanksgiving for all who have cared for him in these final days.
“Jesus told the crowd: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world…Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you ear the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Grandpa was a man of the Eucharist. He was a man who took Jesus at his word, that “This is my Body, This is My Blood.” He was a man who knew that if you wish to have life, you must be part of the body, the church. Not separate, but connected. And this belief, this faith came from Grandpa’s own struggles and journey with God in his life as a man who struggled with sin, and thus knew that He needed a savior.
On one of our trips up to the farm, with just the two of us, Grandpa was doing as he normally did when I was home from Seminary and was asking me what I was learning and why I believed it. Grandpa knew as a good philosopher that theology…our belief in God must be strengthened by our experience of the created world…reality And so he asked, “Corey, why do you believe in God? Why do you believe that he is real?” I started talking about Saint Anselm’s proof for the Existence of God, and Thomas Aquinas’ First mover and after listening, Grandpa said, “Do you know why I believe in God?” “When I was a young boy I was mad at God. My dad died, Silas had moved to the seminary and I asked God why things always continued to happen that hurt me and others. When my Dad died, I had taken a lilly from the funeral and planted it in the front yard. It grew year after year but it never bloomed. Until the day we went to Church for Father Silas’ first Mass. I walked out the door and saw that the Lilly was covered in flowers. Then I knew that God was real, and that he was actively involved in my life.”
My dear family and friends, Grandpa knew that God was real because he struggled with his faith. He struggled with asking God and not always receiving answers. But it was that faith and experience of God in His life that helped Him to believe. To believe that a little piece of bread and a chalice of wine could truly become the full body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Son of God. Precisely because the Son had said so. And Grandpa believed what Jesus said. Yes, the jews quarreled among themselves. The body of Christ continues to quarrel among itself in broken parts today because it is a hard teaching. And many run from Christ’s Church, because it is easier to not believe than to believe what Jesus says. But it is a teaching that ultimately brings life. It is a teaching like the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that God does not wish humanity to be separate from Him, but that he wishes to continue to lower himself into the abyss of our suffering, to place Himself lower than us, to hide himself under a piece of bread and a chalice of wine, so that we might receive Him. So that we might eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood and thus have eternal life.
There is ultimately one reason that we have come together today. Yes, we do so to mourn. Yes we gather to comfort one another, but we gather especially to pray for the soul of Stanley Charles Musholt. That he who in this life loved the Lord, and served Him to the best of His ability, might have any attachment to sin washed away, so that he might gaze upon our Savior face to face in the Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity. That place where the souls of dead are free from the sufferings of this life, and rest in peace and love and the life of God forever.
So we pray this day for Grandpa, the best way that we can. The way our Lord has asked us to pray. By taking a few pieces of bread and a chalice of wine, and offering them up, joined to the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross in thanksgiving to God. Thanksgiving for a life well-lived, thanksgiving for forgiveness given and received, thanksgiving for opportunities to come to know and love God through our lives lived with Stan Musholt. Indeed for your faithful Lord, life is changed, not ended. May our Lady of Guadalupe, our beautiful mother continue to watch over her son Stanley Charles Musholt, that just as she kept him from wandering too far astray from Christ in this life, that now in death, she would keep him under her mantle, within her arms, close to her heart which beats with love of her Son and that she would lead Him home as we pray on this day, O beautiful Mother, that he might see your Son face to face forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. Eternal rest grant unto him…
Walking The Way of Beauty 