Do This in Memory of Me: Be at Home in My Love

By: Laura Catherine Worhacz

Dearest Eucharist Family,  

I have been sleeping on a cot in my husband’s ICU room (in New York City) for four weeks. I was thinking about home, my home in Florida, and how much I miss being in it, living. Many loved ones have asked me to take a break from the hospital; there will be time for that. For now, home is truly where your heart is. Our souls find their rest in God alone. 

“My soul rests in God alone, from whom comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and salvation, my fortress; I shall never fall.” (Psalm 62) 
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And in God, we find the grace to love, and in that love is our home, our resting place. In my obedience to the sacrament of marriage, God’s presence is alive and well. The grace to endure my husband being intubated for 12 days at death’s door has been overwhelming. I have been blessed to be at daily Mass, to receive my LORD and my GOD. My spiritual father, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, proclaimed the greatest grace of his life was receiving Holy Communion. I unite with those sentiments; I can only survive and be sustained in the Cross of Christ by the grace of the Eucharist. Ultimately our eternal home will be found in obedience to Christ and our union to the Crucifixion, Christ’s Passion, Death, and Rising.  ​

"For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith. For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." (1 Corinthians:21-23)

My husband was in septic shock; he arrived at the hospital dying. Three top doctors, on separate occasions, professed that my husband’s survival thus far is a miracle. There were three times during this hospital stay I thought I had lost my husband. Moments of our lives, of the past 36 years especially, flashed through my mind’s eye. As I reflected it did not seem like enough time...   

Christ gave me an echo one morning during holy Mass...  ​

YOU WILL SEE GREATER MIRACLES THAN THESE...  

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." (John 14: 12-13)

As I prayed, I knew in my heart Ray would be healed. The intercession of prayer from all the faithful formed a bond of grace that reached to the heavens and a miracle was granted. My husband’s healing was found in God’s holy will; some healed, some not, trust in all that happened came through prayer.  
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My husband has an open wound. In my prayer, the open wound of the world is before me. Our broken humanity is revealed greater in the heart of the city. Compassion rises as we identify with the fragility of life and all the destruction that causes such brokenness. There is a common thread of striving to be what we may think we should be. When we are at home in the LORD’s love, at home in our service to one another, there is a miracle of grace at every level we should expect. Jesus Christ is with us. The Crosses of life are beheld in God’s love. We are made perfect in the security of God’s love in our home, our souls.  
  

Jesus came to teach us the way to salvation. We are handed a Cross and can either walk with it or let it go... Saint Peter teaches us to whom shall we go. The choices we make have a great effect on our lives. In the Eucharist, we are more attentive to the call to follow the way of the Cross. The pathway to God’s holy will is filled with meeting people on the way. Since my husband has been hospitalized, we have met so many medical professionals, extraordinary in their work of medical advancement, doctors, nurses, and hospital staff. We have been blessed to form new relationships and share our love for JESUS, and mostly to pray for all whom we encounter. A Hail Mary flowing through my mind for each soul.   
  
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God has a purpose for us descending to pain and struggles. We are blessed to offer up now what will purify us for all eternity. This action has allowed some purpose for my husband’s current unexpected health issues.   

Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68) 

​Catechism of the Catholic Church:
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ARTICLE 5  
"HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN"  

631 Jesus "descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens." The Apostles' Creed confesses in the same article Christ's descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day, because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth.

Laura Catherine Worhacz

Laura Catherine Worhacz is a Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament and author of Consecration to Jesus Through Our Lady of The Blessed Sacrament. She is also the Director of Mothers of The Blessed Sacrament. She lives in Trinity, FL with her husband and their two daughters.