On this past first-Friday, my father Aloysius Kubat entered eternity, after having received viaticum, absolution, anointing of the sick and the apostolic pardon, a tremendous consolation to me. Throughout my life there was never a question in my mind as to what was most important to my father – his Catholic faith and, most specifically, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the daily reception of the Blessed Sacrament.
The day before he passed away, my little sister saw, while at his bedside, what she described as the most beautiful smile she has ever seen. She described it as a look of love, “ten times greater than how he used to look at Mother.” Wondering what he was looking at, she turned and discovered he was gazing at the crucifix that was hanging above him. It was an incredible moment for my sister.
On Monday, September 14, the universal Church celebrated the Triumph of the Cross – the definitive victory of Jesus Christ over Satan, his fellow fallen angels, sin and death. Did not St. Paul put it best when he said, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is they sting? …. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory though our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:54-56). Consoling words, these.
Then one day later, we celebrated the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. There are seven sorrows of Mary that are traditionally listed: the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple (during which Simeon informed Mary that a sword would pierce her Immaculate Heart); the flight into Egypt as she, the child Jesus and her husband Joseph escaped King Herod who wished to kill Jesus; the loss and finding of the child Jesus in the temple; the encounter of Mary and Jesus as He carried His cross to Calvary; the death of Jesus on the cross; when Mary held the dead body of Jesus; and the burial of Jesus.
Since Mary was a faithful Jewish girl and woman, she would have been familiar with the passages in the Old Testament which prefigured and predicted the suffering and death of her son, including what is written in the Psalms and the suffering servant passages in the book of the prophet Isaiah. Imagine the daily sorrow in her Immaculate Heart as she pondered the fate of her Son.
Likewise, ponder the joy as she pondered daily that there would be an Easter Sunday when her Son would rise from the dead, to die no more. This is why my father stared at the crucifix with great love with a smile that cannot be described. May we do the same each and every time we gaze upon the crucifix. “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”
