- Feb 5, 2002
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‘Every human being is destined to die. But death is not the last word. Death, the mystery of the Virgin’s Assumption assures us … is the passage to the eternal happiness in store for those who toil for truth and justice and do their utmost to follow Christ.’ —Pope St. John Paul II
On Jan. 10, my father died in the arms of the Catholic Church — embraced by Confession, Holy Communion, Anointing of the Sick and the Apostolic Pardon. The fact that my father received such graces has been a powerful and hopeful consolation. It has also helped me understand the Communion of Saints in a new and glorious way.
My father grew up Protestant but converted in his early twenties. At RCIA classes, my father questioned the priest about how he could know that the Catholic Church was the one, true Church. My dad never forgot the priest’s Socratic response: “How many Protestants have the stigmata?”
That question inspired my father to a lifelong fascination with those saints who bore the wounds of Our Lord’s Passion. Since his passing to eternal life, I have been thinking that my father, Bruce Thomas Clark, can now fall to his knees to touch the very wounds of Christ.
Continued below.
My Dad and the Communion of Saints
On Jan. 10, my father died in the arms of the Catholic Church — embraced by Confession, Holy Communion, Anointing of the Sick and the Apostolic Pardon. The fact that my father received such graces has been a powerful and hopeful consolation. It has also helped me understand the Communion of Saints in a new and glorious way.
My father grew up Protestant but converted in his early twenties. At RCIA classes, my father questioned the priest about how he could know that the Catholic Church was the one, true Church. My dad never forgot the priest’s Socratic response: “How many Protestants have the stigmata?”
That question inspired my father to a lifelong fascination with those saints who bore the wounds of Our Lord’s Passion. Since his passing to eternal life, I have been thinking that my father, Bruce Thomas Clark, can now fall to his knees to touch the very wounds of Christ.
Continued below.
My Dad and the Communion of Saints
