Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Reflecting on Genesis 2: 18-24

My friend Eileen Love died recently. I hoped to write about her sometime in the next three years, when an appropriate scripture text revealed itself, but it happened already, just a month after her death, with today’s scriptures about marriage. I’m glad. I’ve been wanting to remember her to you.

Eileen and Mike loved each other, and for that reason they left their fathers and mothers, and, clinging to each other, left Long Island for upstart, 1970s Denver. They brought four kind, smart Love sons into the world there. Things got even better when these sons married their warm and brilliant wives. But, of course, Eileen’s Love Life went into its highest gear when the adorable, enchanting grandkids started coming (the seventh of whom will no doubt have been born by the time you read this).

Her funny, heartbroken siblings spoke at her services, their New York accents bringing the Irish ancestors right into the room. Eileen had a deeply intuitive connection with these ancestors, the great-grandparents who taught their children the faith, which was then passed to their children’s children. Before she ever knew she was sick, she published her stunning memoir, In the Shadow of the Cedar, about her mother’s family.

Like olive plants around the table, she could imagine all the children of all the people in her family, going back several generations.

I commend her to you now as we consider these readings. Whether married, single, or a vowed Religious, we all had a mother and a father. Pray for them today. And pray for whomever it was who brought you to the faith. And may the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.

How can we honor all our families who came before us?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Ordinary Time - Cycle B