This blog is for those who pray for the suicidal, for those who have committed suicide, and for their families.
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Saturday, May 25, 2013
"I have loved thee with an everlasting love."
God the Father speaks these words directly to you and to each person. Each person is a unique irreplaceable image of God. Because God is all knowing and has no beginning or end, you have always existed as an idea in His Mind and He has loved who you are. That is why the members of LAST (Lifeline Against Suicide Team) pray for every person to realize the gift of his or her own life and to appreciate that everlasting gift.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The L.A.S.T. word
The
L.A.S.T. Word
By
Sister Mary Rose Reddy, DMML
“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here” (Acts 16:28).
"Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." (Acts 16:28) |
It is very simple to join the Team, especially if
you already pray a daily Rosary and/or a Divine Mercy chaplet. L.A.S.T. uses the international Rosary as a
model. Each decade is for a different
continent. For example you might pray
the first decade for Africa, the second for Australia and all the island
countries, the third for Europe, the fourth for North and South America, and
the fifth for Asia. All you have to do is add (mentally) an intention before
each decade that people in that area tempted to suicide will be prevented from
doing so, and that those who have already committed suicide will receive God’s
Mercy.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “We
should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own
lives. By ways known to him alone, God
can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken
their own lives” (CCC 2283).
When my childhood friend Rosemary
committed suicide in 1990 it seemed that nothing would ever be alright
again. I had become a religious Sister
and moved to Connecticut in 1980 and Rosemary and I had gradually fallen out of
contact; but she was the kind of lifelong friend with whom I could pick up a
conversation as if we had only seen each other the day before, no matter how
many years had actually gone by.
Because her favorite color was
yellow, I titled the poem I wrote on the day of Rosemary’s funeral “Yellow
Roses.” The poem was a prayer asking God to have mercy
on her soul.
For several months after her death I
continued to grieve. The thought that
her soul might have been lost was a great anguish to me. I kept wishing that I
had stayed in contact with her and that I might have been able to help her
somehow.
Then God in His Mercy began to show
me that I could still help her. I
considered that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8); He loves Rosemary much more than I
do, and He desires her salvation. His
Mercy is Infinite and at the moment when she realized the terrible mistake that
she had made, if she turned to Jesus for mercy, she certainly would have received
it. I was greatly
consoled by a saying of Saint Padre Pio, "For the Lord, the past does not exist; the future does not exist.
Everything is an eternal present...even now I can pray for the happy death of
my great- grandfather!" I knew that
this meant that I could pray now for Rosemary to be open to receive God’s Mercy
at the moment of her death because everything is present to God. At the moment of her death, God already saw my
future prayer for Rosemary.
On the Palm
Sunday after Rosemary’s death, I said to her, “If you are either in Purgatory
or in Heaven, then I want you to give me a sign in one week. It doesn’t matter what it is; but I need to
know for sure that it is from you.” Exactly one week later, on Easter Sunday, I
was at another convent. I happened to be
looking through a drawer filled with free holy cards. Seeing one of my favorite pictures of Our
Lady on the cover of a greeting card I took the card out and opened it. Inside was a picture of yellow roses and the
words, “Behold I am alive and I live forevermore.”
If you
would like to formally join the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (L.A.S.T.),
then please e-mail your name to Sister Mary Rose at: lastacts1628@gmail.com. Also if you have any witness stories of how L.A.S.T.
has helped someone, please feel free to send them to us.
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