God is
always open to hearing us through prayer, but sometimes, He may want something
more from us. The Bible is full of
stories where God made His intentions known through dreams and angels. How does God get your attention? Would God’s intentions be easily
recognized? The following relates how
God tried to get my attention for over a month, starting at the end of
2013. However, to really understand what
these events meant to me, some background information about my mother is
required.
My mother,
Helen (Muller) Schuff, was born on April 11, 1934 in Brooklyn, NY. She was raised Roman Catholic and attended
Saint Pancras Church in Glendale, Queens, NY.
When she and my father (who is Lutheran) decided to marry, my mother
converted to Lutheran as “mixed marriages” were frowned upon at that time.
However, she never really gave up her
Catholic faith. So, while my siblings
and I were being raised Lutheran, we were also exposed to many facets of Catholicism. We knew about the rosary and confessions with the
priests. We knew about prayers of
intercession to Mary and the saints. When
I purchased my first car, she gave me a Saint Christopher’s medal which I
carried on my key chain.
Although my
mother did not talk often of prayer, we knew she loved praying to Mary. We would often find her rosary in different
rooms of our apartment which indicated to us that she had been praying. However, if she had an issue where she really
needed guidance, or was very happy about something, she would pray to Saint
Therese of Lisieux. Saint Therese, who
is also called the Little Flower, is known for her unshakable faith in God
which became stronger during her darkest times (she was very ill for many years
and died at 24 of tuberculosis). It is
believed that when you pray to St. Therese, she will answer you by showing you
a rose. However, my mother would point
out that St. Therese’s answer would only come by seeing a rose where or when it
was not expected. For example, you could
not look in a place where you knew roses to be and claim you received an answer
from St. Therese. Further, my mother
would say that the answer did not have to be a full rose. St. Therese’s answer could come as part of a
rose, or a picture of a rose, or even the sudden scent of a rose when no roses
were nearby.
My mother did
not pray often to St. Therese, but when she did, she always received an answer
within a day of her prayer. I remember
her receiving roses in the form of a picture postcard from friends she hadn’t
seen in many years. Another time, our
front steps and sidewalk had rose petals scattered over them when we came out
of the house to go to school. I remember
seeing a single rose lying next to a street curb as we walked to the
store. Each time something like this
happened, my mother would become very happy because she knew her prayer was heard.
In early
1997, my mother developed a horrible neurological disease called Multiple Systems
Atrophy (MSA). MSA is an incurable, long
term disease where a person’s nervous system systematically shuts down, piece
by piece, over the course of many years.
Each section of the nervous system that shuts down results in the loss
of use of some part of the body. In my
mother’s case, it started in her right arm which she lost the ability to
use. It then moved into her face where
the disease played a cruel trick on her.
She not only lost her ability to smile, but the disease also caused severe
muscle twitching around her eyes. From
there, MSA slowly took over her body.
She lost her ability to walk, control normal bodily functions, and was
confined to sitting or lying. In
December, 2000, she fell out of her chair and broke her hip, and on the morning
of August 6th, 2001, her heart stopped.
Sometime
around Christmas, 2013, I began to think a lot about my mother. The memories however, were a little strange
in that they would just pop into my head as I was doing something completely
unrelated. Also, they were not typical
memories, such as vacations or Christmas.
Rather, they were more like moments in time or short film clips of my
family’s daily life. For example, one
memory was of walking down Myrtle Ave. in Ridgewood while my mother pushed her
large baby carriage with my brother and sister in it. Another was redeeming the books of Plaid
Stamps she collected from the supermarket for some household item she or my
father had wanted from the Plaid Stamp catalog.
These “pop-in” memories were happening to me two or three times a day,
although initially I didn’t pay too much attention to them as I thought it was
just me thinking of her.
Around the
middle of January, 2014, I was reviewing a report at work, and something I had
completely forgotten popped into my head.
One of the few successes the doctors had with giving my mother relief
with MSA occurred when the disease moved into her face. They sent her for Botox injections to stop
the severe muscle twitching around her eyes by paralyzing her facial
muscles. I had completely forgotten
about this and, upon remembering, just sat at my desk for a few minutes
wondering about what had caused that thought to come to me. That evening, as we were eating dinner, my
daughter (who works at Four Winds Hospital) was talking about the different
medications they use for psychiatric treatment.
As she was talking, my wife Jeannie turned to me and asked if I remember
that my mother had received Botox injections for muscle twitching from the
MSA. Shocked, I asked her to repeat what
she just said, to which she asked me again if I remember my mother getting
Botox injections. When I told her that I
had just remembered the Botox that morning, and that it was one of many
memories I was recently having of her, she told me that she had been thinking
of my mother quite a lot as well. What
was happening to me was also happening to Jeannie, and from that point forward,
we tried to keep track of it.
The memories
continued to pop in to me two or three times a day. On Martin Luther King’s birthday, Jeannie and
I left for Israel with St. John’s Church (Mahopac) on a tour called “Walking in
the Footsteps of Jesus”. On the third
day of the tour, the itinerary called for us to go to the Wedding Chapel in
Cana, which marks the location of Jesus’ first miracle. At Cana, all the married couples on the tour would
be given the opportunity to renew their wedding vows. From Cana, we were then scheduled to go to
Nazareth to see the Basilica.
As Jeannie and I walked down the aisle to the
front of the Wedding Chapel to renew our vows, a memory of my mother popped
into my head. I couldn’t help but think
that of my parents and in-laws, she was the one that really would have loved to
see Jeannie and I renew our vows. I
looked at Jeannie and started to tell her about the memory, but Jeannie told me
that the memory happened to her as well.
She then said something beautiful – even though my mother was the only
one of our parents to have passed away, she is the one that is able to see us
renew our vows. As happy as I was
renewing our vows, I was really shaken by the memory I had in the Wedding
Chapel.
Cana Wedding Chapel
After we
renewed our vows, we went outside to get our wedding certificate and buy a
bottle of Cana Wedding Wine from the store across the street from the
Chapel. We then got on the bus where our
guide told us that, due to an election protest in Nazareth that day, he was
revising the itinerary. That afternoon,
we would go to Mount Carmel to tour the church and facility of the Carmelite
order, and if the protests ended, we would go to Nazareth the following
day. So, we went to Mount Carmel.
Before we entered church at Mount Carmel, our
guide gave a short talk about what we would see inside. The church is a tribute to Mary and has both
an upper altar and a lower altar for prayer.
After giving us some history, he then stated that the Carmelite Order is
very proud of their Saint – Saint Therese of Lisieux – also known as The Little
Flower. Hearing this, I nearly
collapsed. I was still upset over the
memory at Cana, and now I was with the Order of Saint Therese. Between all the memories of the past month,
and the events of that day, I simply could not understand what was happening to
me. I went into the church and prayed,
lit a candle for mom, and looked at all the information about Saint
Therese. For the rest of the day, I was
very upset.
Cana Wedding Chapel - Married
couples on our trip that renewed their wedding vows
That night,
I could not fall asleep. I kept playing
the events of the last month over and over in my mind, trying to understand
what was happening to me. Finally, I
started to pray. I prayed for a long
time, not asking God for anything, but thanking Him for allowing me to go on
the trip to Israel as well as trying to talk through the events of the last
month. I told Him I didn’t understand
where He was leading me on this journey and I hoped His purpose would be revealed
to me soon. At about 2:00AM, I fell
asleep.
Church on Mt. Carmel - Mosaic
tile floor honoring St. Therese – The Little Flower
I was
extremely tired when we got up at 5:30AM.
We had to get up early because we were checking out of the hotel that
morning and traveling to Jerusalem that afternoon. When we got on the bus, our guide told us
that the protests were over in Nazareth, and that we would travel there before
heading to Jerusalem.
The Basilica
in Nazareth is an absolutely beautiful church that was designed as a tribute to
Mary. The church, which is built upon
the ruins of several earlier churches, has several levels and has an incredible
steeple which resembles a crown. The
designer felt that since the church is a tribute to Mary, the mother of God
should be wearing a crown. The grounds
of the Basilica also include a smaller church honoring Joseph (St. Joseph’s
Chapel).
I was still
upset that morning over the last month’s events, and especially, the events of
the day before. It did not help that the
Basilica was a tribute to Mary, knowing that my mother loved praying to
her. However, I tried to concentrate on
the Mass and the beauty of the Basilica, which had incredible artwork provided
from many different countries.
Basilica at Nazareth – Mary’s
crown (Steeple)
After Mass,
Jeannie and I went outside the church through one of the side exits, which leads
you up five stone steps to the restrooms and the path to St. Joseph’s
Chapel. As we were standing outside the
church, the priest we were traveling with came out of the church and Jeannie
began speaking with him. While they were
speaking, I went up the steps to the restroom.
Upon coming out, I found that Jeannie and the priest had also come up
the steps, but were still deep in conversation.
I interrupted them momentarily to tell Jeannie that when she was done
with her conversation, that she should look for me by the church because I was
going to try to find a good view for pictures of the steeple. I then descended two of the five stone steps
and stopped, having found that I had a good view of the steeple from that point. Suddenly, there was a loud noise to my right
from the street (the Basilica property abuts a very busy street). I instinctively turned my head to the right, and
when I did, in front of me was a BIG, WHITE, ROSE, about 18 inches away from my
face. I stared dumbfounded at the rose
for a few seconds, and then saw that in back of it was a yellow rose. I then realized that I was actually looking at
a yard of blooming rose bushes. Suddenly,
a feeling I absolutely cannot describe came over me. With this feeling, I somehow knew that by
showing me the roses, God confirmed that he heard everything I had prayed to
Him about the previous night, and that He wanted me to be closer to Him through
prayer like I was the previous evening.
Then I began to sob, and I could not stop sobbing. For the rest of our time at the Basilica, as
well as the 90 minute bus ride to Jerusalem, I cried.
Standing on the stone steps in
front of the yard of roses.
Since that
time, I have felt closer to God than any point in my life. From that moment forward, the pop-in memories
of my mother stopped. God needed to
somehow get my attention so He used thoughts of my mother to do so. Although it took a little time, He certainly
got my attention. Even though a year and
half has gone by since these events, not a day passes without my thinking of
them.
The yard of roses. The white
rose God first showed me can be seen in
the upper right hand corner of the yard.
There is one
final part to this witness, and it shows that God and/or my mother has a sense
of humor. When I was a child, my mother
loved the music of Trini Lopez, who was a fairly popular American singer of
Spanish descent in the 1960’s. Trini’s
style was to take folk or traditional songs, and perform them at a rock-n-roll
pace. My mother loved his versions of
“Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer”, and she would regularly play those
records when I was a kid. However, in
the last 35 to 40 years, I think I’ve heard a Trini Lopez song only once. About seven hours into the El-Al flight home
from Israel, I was trying to fall asleep while listening to one of the music
channels that was playing songs from the 1960’s and ‘70’s. They were playing the music of groups like
The Temptations, Paul McCartney, The Supremes, The Mommas and the Poppas, as
well as some songs in French and Spanish, and some other songs that I had not
heard before. As I was starting to drift off to sleep, Trini
Lopez performing “Lemon Tree” started playing.
I told Jeannie what song had just come on and she smiled. I then raised my eyes to the sky and said
“Mom, it was good having you on this trip with us.”
My Mom - Helen Schuff –
Thanksgiving, 1984
