a meadow pictureAlright. I’ll be brutally frank here, and finally own up to an irrefutable, unstoppable fact.

There is nothing I can do about it; it is as futile as catching the wind in my hands or stopping the incoming tides with my body.

My mother is dying.

I once heard someone quote a Bible passage in reference to another person who was dying:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

(Hebrews 9:27-28, King James Version)

For a long time, I have scoffed at religion and thought it to be a useless vehicle for people too weak to think for themselves; and perhaps it is. There is a subtle area between "faith" and the pure intellectual grasping of things by our (limited?) abilities.

I was raised Catholic. (and I beg pardon of anyone reading this who might be Catholic: if you are a strong Catholic and wish to stop reading from here, I advise you to do so now.)

When I was growing up, I followed my parents to church and was quite content to park myself in a pew for an hour every Sunday for a nice nap… I never took what the priests had to say very seriously. There was the whole sit-stand-kneel thing, and the go-up-to-the-creepy-priest-and-eat-the-wafer business. About the only fun I ever had from it all, was my involvement with the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) activities. Taking field trips, doing fun and often stupid stuff with my peers. Hardly religious stuff at all.

But after seeing what hypocrisies the priests tended to get into, I never really cared about what they had to say. Especially after the various child-molestation scandals came to light. That might be one of the few things that would ever motivate me to strike another human being down in wrath: one who would harm an innocent child like that.

Even today, I have my issues with the Church of Rome: As my mother lay in bed dying of cancer, my father had called for a priest to come administer the "last rites" (in Catholicism, this is a "sacrament" or a religious rite to prepare a soul to be received in heaven, have sins forgiven, and/or healed of whatever mortal affliction the person might have).

This priest was an absolute buffoon: stammering and questioning this sick woman who barely knows right from left anymore - asking her if she knows what she wants? And then, he could not make up his mind what he needed to do! Hello? We called your sorry, clueless butt out here to give LAST RITES. What was so hard about that..? the guy had to have stdied that in priest-school before he got ordained.

Mr. Priest, are you on crack? How dare you put someone who is near death and obviously suffering through a grilling as if she doesn’t "know what she wants…"

We actually had to chase the priest out of the hospital room. I’d have to say that whatever little shred of faith that I may have had in the Roman Church has been utterly destroyed. I actually told this priest to leave, saying that "there is no salvation in the Roman Catholic Church".

I’m sure that went over well with my Dad, and had my mother been in her right mind, she’d have lit into me. They are both arch-Catholic… and mother’s wish had always been for me to return to the "Holy Mother Church".  Except that I cannot in good conscience, return to a "church" that is built upon lies, misery and hypocrisy. 

This is really hard for me to deal with… every 20-30 minutes, Mom is screaming out parts of the rosary, saying "hail mary" and the like. I’ve always had a problem with Mary worship… sure, she (Mary) was a "good" woman and according to the tradition and scriptures, chosen of God to bear the Baby Jesus into this world.

But she ain’t nothing more than that, to me. She didn’t die on a cross, nor did she rise again from the dead. I simply cannot bring myself to pray that "hail mary prayer". 

Don’t get me wrong. I want her to "go to heaven". Perhaps more than most people, since I am her son. She has done many good things to others in her life, the least of which was putting up with a dumb mule of a son like me. But will her good deeds earn her a place in Heaven?

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

…Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…

(Romans 3:10-12, 20-23, KJV) 

Why is she screaming "I don’t want to die… I don’t want to go to Hell!"??

She calls out to her Blessed Virgin, Holy Mother… but she has no peace. 

This "Queen of Heaven" did not hear her prayers… she is not comforted. And I am actually beginning to be afraid that she just might be heading to that other place. On an intellectual level, I had always forced myself to think that Hell was an abstraction, some medieval construct made for evil people in the afterlife … but to hear her talking about it so vividly…

Even when Dad and I finally left to get some sleep… she was still crying and murmuring how "I don’t want to get off the train…" This of course, is a metaphor for her awareness of impending death. Perhaps it was her fever talking… but she kept saying that whenever the train stopped… it was so hot… so unbearably hot.

Her Blessed Virgin did not help her, nor do I think she ever will.

Perhaps this is the result of some choices I have made, some things I know God isn’t pleased with.

I wonder: have I truly failed my mother, at such an important time?