I'll Be Remembering you

Anniversary Celebration of Dad

Dad's one year anniversary of parting the veil between earth and heaven is on June 23rd. His family will gather on the beach of the Gulf in Pensacola to share his love of the water, the sand, the beauties of the earth - and especially each other. This original painting is dedicated to dad reminding us of all these loves - home first of all.

Peggy

Reunion in Heaven

JMJP

Thanks for the message about Mr. Kerry. You are all in my prayers; as close as you all are to one another.

However, what a beautiful reunion must be going on in Heaven right now. Especially on the Feast of St. Paul and the 100th anniversary of the Founder's Ordination to the priesthood (Blessed James Alberione, founder of the Society of St Paul. Charlotte was a member of the Holy Family Institute in the Pauline Family)

And Mr. Kerry is there to see it all first hand.

Love and Prayers,

Charlotte & Brent

Charlotte Ducotte was suffering from cancer when she sent this and went to heaven not long after this note was sent via e-mail to Sr Julia. So she is part of this "reunion!"

From cousin Mike George

Thank you for including me in this memorial for your father. He was much loved and well thought of it seems. But of course, could we expect anything less from our Lebanese background.

God be with you and your dear family as you remember your father and keep him alive in those treasured memories. What a wonderful gift our loving Father in Heaven has given us in the gift of memories.

Love always,

Mike
MSG Jewlers St Louis, MO
MSG My Saviour God & Mike S George
(Grandfathers Charles Kerry and George Kerry came from Lebanon in the early 1900s)

Remembering...

I cherish the memories of your Dad's funeral, getting to know your brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews again -- and most of all, the sight of your Mom blowing a kiss towards the hearse as it drove away from the church after the funeral. That touched me deeply. Sister Margaret, you arranged the funeral Mass beautifully; your nieces and nephews read flawlessly, and Theresa's singing must have thrilled your Dad as he watched from his perch in heaven.
Father's homily was heartfelt -- he was obviously very touched by your parents' love affair.
Jean

Dad and Jaclyn in the Print Shop

Always loving the grandkids.

From St Louis Cathedral before Dad died

While I am writing this I am in the choir loft of the St Louis Cathedral. My background for writing is Franz Joseph Hayden’s Mass with a string orchestra and vibrant choir. The Cathedral choir and orchestra prepare for Pentecost Mass on Sunday. It is Wednesday. Dreaux, director of music for the Cathedral, stops over to my post on a folding chair to greet me “hello, I’m Dreux. Welcome!” I take notice and love this about New Orleans - people are approachable and approach each other so readily. Here is simplicity and humility - a genuine-ness that has no compare. One of my sisters in religion, Sr Julia Mary, is singing in the choir. I entered our congregation from our St Paul Bookcenter in Metairie on Veterans Blvd. The center, in Metairie since 1969, was touched by Katrina in 2005 but not flooded. We were able to open the doors just one month after the city re-opened.

If the people of South Louisiana suffer hurricanes it is not because they may rebuild it is because they can rebuild. Not many people can come back together to rebuild a legendary place – a city that time and again should not have been but still is. This is our history and legacy through generations. I prayed about this from the Cathedral loft.

It is a joy to sit here in the music while writing. This loft, very much like the back alleys of New Orleans, hides a lot that the front and inside don’t show - valuable old wood and peeling paint pulling back to reveal an original ceiling. Lights placed strategically show off the wonderful paintings in the central church. Loft stained glass windows run colors over the floor and balcony – azalea color, wisteria winding. Down below the chandelier the paint is fresh with gold trim. The stained glass in the main church reveals saints and Jesus stories living and walking about the aisles. Our Lady of Prompt Succor holds up the Savior promising to connect heaven with earth through the globe embraced. The loft supports chair, choir, orchestra – a hidden heavenly agenda of promises to come – a place of rest, music, singing angels.

I take it all in: the State Flag – a Pelican feeding her young, the Cathedral centered in Jackson Square looking over the mighty water of life and destruction on her front porch. I called mom and dad from here so they could listen to the music. Dad has been praying for healing from cancer. I felt that we were all three in the church, this Cathedral that has always embraced me.

Entering through her arms at the front door I got a hug perfumed by warm bees-wax candles. A walking incense bearer through the aisles I greeted all the saints bowing reverently to this communion and more profoundly to the communion at the altar: Eucharistic, ageless- wonder. The altar is within a canopy of walls – the small city motto: faith hope and charity – stand as statues inviting visitors to understand where they are and who they can be.

My dad was in the hospital for three days while I was visiting Pensacola. He continually wanted to return to the “church of his home” – surrounded by those who woke him with the incense of roasted coffee; morning awakened by those who wanted to join him in a communion of meals and prayers. When my parents’ house on Pensacola Beach was lost in Hurricane Ivan what remained was the heart of a Sacred Heart statue. The statue was from a convent in Louisiana – the convent of the Good Shepherd Sisters. The Cathedral baldachin’s Sacred Heart here pulses over the congregation surrounded by the words “Behold the Lamb of God.” My dad daily prays Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd” while going through a terminal illness. We have scripture from the Song of Songs written on the clear case that holds the Sacred Heart at home: “Deep waters cannot quench love.”

I used to wonder what was in the loft during my many times of prayer in the St Louis Cathedral. I would stare up there from my pew hoping to catch a glance of something unseen – something that was meant to be hidden from the eyes directed toward beauty. Now I know – it is the place that beckons not because of beauty but because of revelation. The loft has revealed to me that beauty is held up by ancient wood and pillars, layers of paint, lights strategically placed, folding chairs allowing visitors to feel welcome, wondrous music, vibratos of color through glass, string orchestras, and people like me writing it all down in a journal being greeted by people like Dreaux.

People bearing burdens are the loft of our Cathedral – hidden – unfinished – mysterious – shining lights to reveal fresh paint and gilded paintings. They are music in the loft – orchestras close to the heavens. We may stare up at the loft and wonder – what is hidden there that allows all this beauty to continue?

I no longer wonder.

Hymn of Thanksgiving

Across the frozen chain of centuries,
I sense the warmth of your breath divine,
Hear the blood flowing. Now you are near.
A part has cleared from the mist of time.

I see your Cross, your Cross for my sake.
My spirit in dust before the Cross:
Now is the triumph of love and salvation,
Here praise unto the ages does not cease: Alleluia.

Blessed is he who will eat of the supper in your kingdom, But already on this earth You have made me a partaker of this blessing. How many times have you in your divine right hand stretched out to me your body and your blood, and I, so full of sin, accepted the sacrament And experienced your love, ineffable, beyond nature.

Glory to you for the incomprehensible, Life-giving glory of grace.
Glory to you who raised up your Church as a quiet harbor for a tormented world.
Glory to you for renewing us with the life-giving waters of baptism…
Glory to you for the cup of life, for the bread of eternal joy, Glory to you who has lead us out to heaven.

Akathist of Thanksgiving

Most Beautiful Thing

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
Albert Einstein

Poetry in Music: Dad's love song

Dad and God's Love Song to Each other, to mom and to us. See explanation after the lyrics.


I would die to be
Your lover lost at sea
And I'd fly to hear
Your every sirening and I'd scream of love
Through bloody hurricanes
Would you say so
If you thought of me

Would you say so
If you thought of me
And it would it crush you
If you saw me bleed
And would you dance the same
If you knew that I could see
Oh, do you feel the same for me?

With guns ablaze,
I'll bring you what you need
And with fires of raid
I'll wake your blinking city up
Yeah I'll scream my love
As arrows fill the skies
Would you say so
If thought of me

Would you say so
If you thought of me
And would it crush you
If you saw me bleed
And would you dance the same
If you knew that I could see
Would you say so
If you thought of me
And would it crush you
If you saw me bleed
And would you dance, dance, dance
If you knew that I could see
Oh, do you feel the same for me?

Hey now,
Oh no,
You got a clean shot
All the
Ways you
To pierce my heart

Hey now,
Oh no,
You row me right through
With all these words
I've sung to you

Would you say so
If you thought of me
And would it crush you
If you saw me bleed
And would you dance the same
If you knew that I could see
Would you say so
If you thought of me
And it would it crush you
If you saw me bleed
And would you dance, dance, dance
If you knew that I could see
Until you feel the same for me.

Why this song?

The words "I scream my love through hurricanes" for one reason "All the ways you can pierce my heart" for another - the Sacred Heart that is. It is a love song from God who is screaming through hurricanes. And we thought that was just destructive forces! The force of love can destroy to get to the lover. The best part is that it is God who is madly in love - and we can pierce God's heart in a myriad ways.

Why on dad's page?

Dad and mom lost it all (but each other and us!) in a hurricane - when dad drew back his bow of life and let go he had a straight shot right to God, like an arrow. He had a clean shot! He filled the sky with arrows of prayer - he screamed back into the hurricane answering this great love. Dad is our lover at sea now - not lost to us but to our vision - in the shadow and storm of death - in God we hear him scream his love to his family - and he sees us dancing to his life song.