All Shall Be Well

  “All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.”

Those are the words of Julian of Norwich, 14th century holy woman and Christian mystic. Julian was inspired when she wrote those reassuring words. But her words are often misunderstood to be merely an optimistic counterweight to the trials and tribulations of life. Rather, her meaning comes from what her biographer Veronica Mary Rolf attributes to “her courageous faith, her hard-won hope, and most of all, her profound realization that ultimately, because God is love, all shall be well.”

Julian’s theology grew out of her own mystical experiences when, at the age of thirty, she fell ill with the Black Plague that was sweeping Europe. Her writings emphasize the goodness and love of God, especially in times of great suffering and darkness. The Renovare spiritual direction team cites joy as the main point throughout all of Julian’s writing: a joy that draws one into a deep understanding of the goodness of God.

Though we go through the fire and all may, at times, seem lost, God’s love surrounds us and is bringing us home; a home where, in the end, either in this life or the next, that which is broken will be made whole again, and all shall be well. Our soul intuitively knows this, and, in moments of spiritual clarity, our intellect knows it as well.

This truth has been reinforced for me over the last few years. My soulmate, my sweetheart Wanda, is undergoing treatment for a rare and aggressive uterine cancer. Two years of chemotherapy were unsuccessful, and she is now undergoing immunotherapy. I myself have been living with progressive and incurable Parkinson’s disease.

Illness has brought us challenges but also gifts. There is clarity that there’s more to life than our personal time and space; and there is knowledge of the fullness of life and love in the present moment. There is trust that God unconditionally loves us, and that either in this life or the next, God will find a way to heal us and make us whole. There is the knowledge and the trust that all shall be well. Julian of Norwich was so right.

This brings to mind a reflection I previously shared with the parishioners of Mount Carmel about a family project I was finally able to complete. About 20 years ago, I selected the best photographs from 65 albums of family pictures and digitized them onto one three-hour video with background music. I called it The Ferrauiola Family Video Special.

The video begins with photos of my wife Wanda’s and my parents and grandparents and scenes from our childhood. It goes on through our teens, our high school romance, the early years of our marriage, the arrival of each of our four children and our grandchildren, and many special moments from our life together over the past 54 years.

Sitting with Wanda in our family room and watching the video is a real joy for me. Seeing our marriage and our children weave and grow together across the years fills me with thanksgiving for my life. But along with the joyful times there have been difficult days: the challenges of raising four children, of work, of illness, of life. I know that if I could drill down and see scenes that didn’t make it to the camera, I would see moments of anxiety and doubt. But sitting in our family room with my arm around Wanda, smiling and laughing as we watch 54 years of life and love roll across the TV screen, it’s clear to me that God’s grace and love have always been with us.

Now think about your own life and the life of every person who has ever lived and will live in the future and of all the videos that could be made from all those individual stories. What if they were made and someone edited them together into one big video called The Story of the Human Family? And what if someday, after we’ve died and been reunited with our loved ones who have gone before us, God gets us all together into that big family room in heaven to watch The Story of the Human Family?

As we watch the story unfold, we would see moments of goodness, kindness, and love. Sadly, we would also see moments of anger, pain, and sorrow. But sitting with our loved ones in the presence of God, beyond the boundaries of time and space and the limits of human understanding, we would know that God’s grace had carried us through.

But we’re not there yet; and that’s where faith comes in. You see, we’re here in 2021 and we’re still making the videos. We may be in the middle of a happy time or a painful time; we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and we certainly don’t know how the story will end.

But we are here today because we have faith. We trust that no matter what difficulties or tragedies befall us as individuals, as a family, a church, or a nation, they are only isolated moments in time. We trust that in the end God’s grace will pull us through, heal us and fix whatever is broken in our lives.

Some day we will all gather in God’s eternal family room with our loved ones, the ones here now and the ones who have gone home before us. And we will watch a wonderful story, the story of our journey home. And we will know that we were never, ever alone; that God was always walking beside us, holding our hand.

In the end, all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well. “ 

❤️ With love,

            Deacon Lex

            

 

The Unbroken Circle of God’s Love

Tuesday, September 21st, 2021

We Catholics believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ. That Body is an unbroken circle of God’s love. It connects every living being with our loving Creator and with each other. We are the Body of Christ. We are Eucharist for each other.

Saint Paul tells us that the ‘bread that we break’ – the Eucharist – is a participation in the Body of Christ. He says that ‘because the bread we share is one, we, though many, are one body’. I have been blessed, many times, in my life to experience my place in that one body. One very special experience comes to mind that I’d like to share.

In April of 1975, the city of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Communists and the Viet Cong. Thousands upon thousands of people fled their villages to save their families and themselves from persecution and death. As Viet Nam had been predominantly a Catholic country, many of those fleeing refugees were Catholic Christians.

For several years the nightly news was filled with images of what became known as the ‘boat people’. These were refugees who had sold all their possessions and risked everything to flee Viet Nam on makeshift and overcrowded boats and rafts. Many died at sea due to storms; many were murdered or raped by pirates. A lucky few made it to disease-ridden refugee camps in the Philippines or Indonesia where they languished for years hoping and praying for sanctuary in the West. Catholic Charities was among the international agencies assisting with relocation.

In the summer on 1979, my wife Wanda and I were watching “60 Minutes” as Mike Wallace and his team did a segment on those ‘boat people’ struggling to survive in an Indonesian refugee camp. A Vietnamese woman looked directly into the camera – and into our souls – and pleaded for help. Wanda turned to me and said that we needed to help. The next day she called Catholic Charities in Newark and offered to accept a family into our home. The day before Thanksgiving we received a phone call from Catholic Charities telling us that the N . . . family had been assigned to us.

We met Nguyet and her husband Hieu, and their two children Minh and Huy at Newark airport the day after Thanksgiving. They literally had rags on their backs and were emaciated and freezing cold. They spoke no English and we did not speak Vietnamese; yet, by the grace of God, we were able to communicate with each other. We brought the N . . . family to our home here in Tenafly and set up our den as their bedroom. As soon as we arrived, Wanda made hot soup and together with our two children and their two children, we sat down around our dining room table to share their first meal in America.

Nguyet and Hieu were devout Catholics. Before they escaped from Viet Nam, their village priest had given them some consecrated hosts to bring with them and nourish them on their journey. By the time they reached our home, one consecrated host remained. The day after they arrived, Nguyet used gestures and signs to show us the remaining host and invite us to share the Eucharist with them. What a gift of grace, what a powerful experience of the Body of Christ that was for us.

The N . . . family lived with us for six months. They recovered from some severe illnesses including malaria and intestinal parasites. With the help of a Vietnamese to English dictionary we were able to communicate, share stories and grow close as friends. They attended Mass here at Mount Carmel with us.

Through the kindness and generosity of many parishioners, neighbors and local healthcare professionals, their health improved. Wanda found them an apartment in Teaneck and found work for Hieu at a manufacturing company in Hackensack run by a family of refugees from the Holocaust. A year later they decided to move to San Jose, California for a warmer climate and to be part of a large Vietnamese community. They started a small food-truck business, worked very hard and were successful. When I was in San Francisco in 1984 on business, they met me at the airport and welcomed me to their home.

Years later, when I was ordained a deacon in 1992, Nguyet and her daughter flew to New Jersey and attended the Mass of ordination at the Cathedral in Newark. What a joy to celebrate and once again share the Body of Christ together. We are the body of Christ.

There are many stories like this: you have them, and I have them. Through many individual souls, through the Bread that we share, we are one. From that village priest in Viet Nam, to Nguyet and Hieu, to Wanda and me, to those generous parishioners and healthcare people, to the Vietnamese community in San Jose, to the communicants on ordination day in 1992, to Mass today, there is an endless unbroken circle of God’s love. That circle is the Eucharist. It connects every living being with our loving Creator and with each other.

We are Eucharist for each other!

We are the Body of Christ!

Both families in 1979 & 2018