It Is A Good Day To Die!

Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciple: “Let us also go to die with him.” John 11

Indian chief, rallying his warrior brothers for battle: “Today is a good day to die!”

“We need someone to die a little tomorrow morning,” Frank Palumbo, Responsible and Catechist for our Neocatecumenal communities at St. Columba’s, NYC, needed help the next morning preparing the Church for Holy Week activities. “The Christian life is about dying, little by little; and we have an opportunity here to die a little tomorrow morning.” I didn’t volunteer, but his words stayed with me. Several months later, on September 11, 2009, Frank was one of the first firemen over the Brooklyn Bridge, to the World Trade Center, and into the hands of God. He left his wife to raise their 12 children; but his mission was accomplished. He had died for the brethren.

Story narrated by Michael during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Men’s Conference (“Iron sharpens iron; so a brother strengthens a brother”), West Orange, NJ, March 28, 2009:
The car hit a spot of ice and slid off the road at Bear Mountain. The husband came to and realized he had two broken legs and his wife had a broken spine and neck. What happened next we know because she survived. The police eventually found her alive in the cold, covered by two winter coats. They found her husband up the hill, frozen to death, where he had pulled himself, coatless and crippled, in his attempt to get help for his suffering wife.
This brother had fulfilled his purpose: he laid down his life for his spouse.

Every man is destined to lay down his life: for wife, children, nation, or Church. We all had the privilege of watching John Paul II lay down his life, in slow motion, as he nobly suffered the ravages of Parkinson’s and taught us all how to die.

The warrior chief is right: Today is a good day to die! Every day is a good day to die!

See you at the General Judgment! We will compare battle scars (i.e. stigmata)!