The Three Elderly Ladies at Daily Mass

Just was to the wake of Marge, one of the parishioners at Our Lady who passed away at 94. She was a beautiful woman. Until maybe the past year when she was too infirm to attend she would be at daily mass. She always sat with Mary and Pat, two ladies around the same age. At times when I got discouraged with what seemed to be lack of Catholic courage in our shepherds as the culture was transforming into a weird mix of Orwell and Huxley---a kind of Brave New Big Brother World. But all I needed to do to realize the strength that was in holiness was to just be in the presence of these ladies, examples each in their unique way of beautiful good gracious lovely femininity. The ladies too were a contradiction to the times with their long dresses, faces with only the cosmetic of caritas, their uncolored white hair, their meek voices. Each had infirmities you could never guess in their smiles. Mary was nearing complete blindness, Pat was beset with a brain tumor, Marge had lymphoma. One of the granddaughters at the wake told me the last conversation her grandmother had with Mary, her best friend, was that her grandmother told Mary that she looked forward to seeing her again... in heaven. Amen.