Death

A Sad Addendum to That "Smallest Baby" Story

December 21, 2011 By Kathy Schiffer Leave a Comment

Sometimes the news is so painful, you just don’t want to know.

A few days ago, I wrote about tiny Melinda Star Guido who, at four months old, is finally healthy enough to go home for the holidays. Melinda weighed only 9 ½ ounces at birth, and doctors really didn’t expect her to survive. She was a fighter, though, and after successful treatment for an eye condition and surgery to repair an artery, Melinda faces a bright future.

But today I read about another tiny child, Joseph Bradbury. Joseph, who was born at 23 weeks, was a little bigger than Melinda—he weighed 1 lb. 6 oz. at birth.

Joseph’s parents, Scott and Sarah Bradbury, had been trying to start a family for ten years; but Sarah was facing a medical condition, and every time she became pregnant, she miscarried. In fact, Sarah suffered eight miscarriages before giving birth to her “miracle baby boy” in August.

Beating the odds, baby Joseph has thrived in the care of his loving parents.

But now the bad news: Scott and Sarah live in Portland, near the English Channel in the county of Dorset, in the United Kingdom. Last week they attended an Advent reconciliation service at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Weymouth, intending to go to confession before the Christmas holiday.

Talking about his wife later, Scott reported, “Just as she went into confession she gave me a cheeky smile.” Sarah walked into the confessional alone; but as she was telling Father Stephen Geddes how well her premature baby Joseph was doing, she began to feel ill and collapsed. A doctor who was present for the penitential service tried to resuscitate her until paramedics arrived; but Sarah died in the hospital from an undiagnosed gastro-intestinal bleed.

Little Joseph, the miracle baby, made Sarah very happy in his short life—but now, he and his father Scott face life without Sarah. “All Sarah wanted to do,” said Scott, “was to become a mother.”

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

–Isaiah 55:8-9

Filed Under: Catholic, Death, Families Tagged With: Bradbury, Love, Penitential Service, Smallest Baby Leave a Comment

Cardinal Foley Belonged to All of Us– But Most Especially, He Belonged to God

December 13, 2011 By Kathy Schiffer 1 Comment

It seems everyone has a good “Cardinal Foley” story to tell. The man was just so nice, so gracious, so friendly, we all thought he belonged especially to us.

During my years as conference director for Legatus, I called upon him often. He concelebrated Mass at our annual conference in Florida, and later he welcomed us to his offices at the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in Rome. There, he spoke with great energy about the role of the Church in the world, and about how goals of the new evangelization could be realized through the media.

One of the special treats then-Archbishop John P. Foley served up for our group each year was a special showing of historic Vatican films, including the Pontifical Council’s oldest and most famous: A short clip on Lumiere film dating from 1896, featuring Pope Leo XIII. In the film, first the pontiff is seated, surrounded by bishops in an ornate chair; in the next scene, he arrives in a horse-drawn carriage. An aide reminds him that this is to be a moving picture; and slowly, deliberately, Pope Leo waves to the camera.

Next Archbishop Foley shared a clip of Pope Pius XI inaugurating the Vatican Radio station, followed by Pope Pius XII visiting with the Italian royal family. Finally, we were treated to amazing footage from October 1962: the great Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII seated near the great baldacchino in St. Peter’s Basilica, the bishops in their tall mitres.

Archbishop Foley was the consummate storyteller, and he loved to share this rich history of the Church and the papacy with our admiring crowd. He spoke of the role of media, of Bishop Fulton Sheen as the first televangelist; then he told jokes and chatted amiably with his guests. I recounted an early childhood memory of Pope Pius XII having contracted hiccups that would not stop, even after many weeks; and Archbishop Foley told us all that this was, in fact, the way he had died—the recurrent hiccups signaling his impending death.

For several years, I saw Archbishop Foley only on television—narrating the pope’s Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, explaining the Faith to the world.

But then, some years later, our paths crossed again. Visiting Rome with executives of Guest House, I again arranged for a visit to Archbishop Foley’s office. In February 2006, he had had a cancerous kidney removed; but by September of that year, he was back at his desk and he received us enthusiastically. A trip to Rome is always such a flurry, and some details of the week remain sketchy; but over the next few days, he met with us again. Very supportive of Guest House’s mission of hope and healing for addicted Catholic clergy and religious, Archbishop Foley led us to a favorite café to continue our conversation over breakfast—and he then insisted on picking up the tab.

In 2007, Archbishop Foley was named Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and elevated to the rank of Cardinal-Deacon.

In November 2011 the U.S. bishops, gathered in Baltimore for the USCCB Fall General Assembly, heard a report from Archbishop Edwin O’Brien regarding his failing health yet buoyant spirits, and they joined in prayer for this great man of God as he neared the end of his life’s journey.

And this week Cardinal Foley, the great communicator, left us to labor without him as he went to the place prepared for him by the Father. With Catholics the world over, I mourn for Cardinal Foley this week.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Filed Under: Bishops, Catholic, Death, Faith, Vatican Tagged With: Cardinal John Foley, Catholic, Equestrian Order, Faith, Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Vatican 1 Comment

Rosebud: You Absolutely Can't Take It With You!

December 12, 2011 By Kathy Schiffer Leave a Comment

Ain’t that the truth?!

Was Orson Welles thinking about eternity when he scooped up the Academy Award for his blockbuster hit film “Citizen Kane”? Probably not—just as you and I are not usually thinking about eternity when we acquire a bigger home, the newest electronic gadget, another item for our collection of DVDs, athletic jerseys, or teacups.

Welles was a young man of 25 in 1941 when he wrote, directed and starred in the film which was voted “best film of the previous century” by the American Film Institute. In the movie, Welles played a fictional media tycoon (based loosely on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst). In his ruthless pursuit of power, Welles’ character acquires more and more property, more wealth, more prestige—but at the end of his life, it’s not his worldly riches which he remembers but the sled he had enjoyed in the innocence of childhood. His dying word was the name of the sled: “Rosebud.”

Orson Welles died on October 10, 1985; but his legendary film lives on. Considered by many film critics to be the greatest film ever made, “Citizen Kane” was re-released on Blu-ray in a special 70^th anniversary edition on September 13, 2011.

Welles’ much-deserved Oscar will be going on the auction block this month, according to Sam Heller of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, a Los Angeles auction house.

An attempt to auction the famed trophy in 2003 was stopped by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which testified that the award’s value at that time was at least $1 million. The Academy has aggressively challenged efforts to sell Oscars in the past, and successfully stopped the sale of two Oscars which had belonged to silent screen star Mary Pickford. A more recent court ruling, however, has cleared Welles’ prize for sale, after a ruling in 2004 that Welles had never signed the Academy’s agreement not to sell the trophy.

So the Motion Picture Academy wants to hold onto the Oscar; so, most likely, did Orson Welles hope to keep it. The thing is, though, you really CAN’T take it with you. Orson Welles walked into eternity and met the Lord Jesus, just as you and I will, alone—with none of the riches acquired during life, but with only his record of good deeds or ill.