Page 48 - With Kay Currie, Westmount

ISSUE : Issue 69

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1995/8/1

feather with a floating sensation which made me understand to stop dancing during the holy year and offer it up for souls, which I did. Immediately the car started and I kept the promise. June 10th, 1950, I was rushing to the kitchen when I struck my an? kle against a chair at a sore spot which used to bother me. It opened, the pain was terrific. I offered it up for my mother, who was ill with a kidney disease. The family was enrolled in the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart. We spent an hour praying with the chil? dren from 8 p.m. to 9. After? wards , I asked Ste. Anne if she wanted me to go to Ste. Anne's to give me the money because I didn't have a cent. Making Some Sense of Pain Kay: See, if you offer up all your sufferings • all your sufferings • everything that happened. Now, like you with your sore back there. Now if you turn around in the morning and say, "Now, I'm offering this up for a soul to be saved, to go to Heaven." That'd be all offered up for you, when you die. You'll see that soul when you die. (You mean if I offered up the fact that I'm having back trouble.) Yes. (And I'm having that pain, and it's offered up in some way for another soul that's died....) Well, another soul in the world. Or a sinner. Whoever it would be. Well, that would be ahead of you when you die. You'll save that person. (Through my own back pain.) Yes. By offering it up. I'm always with pain • you know, somewhere, some place! (And you can make some value of this pain, rather than just have the pain.) That's right. That's what it is-'he value. (Well, you're certainly not asking very much of me. You're saying, "You're going to have the pain anyhow. You might as well use it to help someone else.") Yes, that's right. It couldn't help you, it could help somebody else. You don't know who it would help, but it would help. (And that's the way you sort of address your pain.) That's right. I offer it up to Him. I just talk to our Lord and say, "It's offered up for whomever you want it to apply to." (Oh, I don't even have to make a choice like that.) No, no, no, you don't have to make a choice. We're all brothers and sisters in this world, re? gardless of what denomination we are.... And of course at that time--my foot was open. My foot was completely open, and I could hardly walk. But anyway, I left. I thought to myself, I'll pray to get my foot closed.... And here, on the train go? ing up. Grand? ma (Kay' s mother-in-law) got a cinder in her eye. Stuck her head out through the window of the train. And the other eye, she had a cat? aract on it. God, I didn 't know what to say or do. She couldn 't hard? ly see. You know, with a cinder in the eye, and the other one with a cataract. AT ANOTHER TIME, KAY TOLD US: Usually, anything happens to anybody be? longing to me, I usually notice it on my own body. Just • and I'll offer it up • whoever it is. It'll probably be weeks or months afterwards before I'll know who it is. You know what I mean? (Well, I do, from what you were telling me the last time we were together. I thought that was really helpful, about offering up • even my back pain.) Yes. (And the opportunity that it is. Not that my pain is any less, but that I can do something sensible with it.) Yes. Even to offer it up for someone belonging to you. (At no extra expense!) No. I mean, they don't have to know about it. (They don't have to know about it; costs you nothing to do it. And yet it makes some sense and gives some value to your pain.) Yeah, that's right. You get merit for it. (You get merit for it? Okay.) Yes, you do. Some merit is there. It may cut your Purgatory • you know what I mean. There isn't a soul on this earth that isn't going to go through Purgatory. And I have to laugh and smile when I hear people say, "Well, he's just gone straight to Heaven." (He was that good.) He was that good he just went straight to Heaven. If they only knew. (That that's not going to be the case.) No. It doesn't matter who it is. We're all going to go through it; every one of us. The pilgrimage was leaving on the 10th. Sunday the 9th, Grandma Currie arrived, wanting me to go to the shrine. She gave me $25.00 and I was given $25.00 from another lady. I knew Ste. Anne wanted me to go. Mother had been prepared for death Satur? day. I went to see the parish priest, if it was right for me to go when Mother was so low. He banished all my fears and I left. DAVE'S CYCLE SALES 455 GRAND LAKE RD., SYDNEY 562-4343 e I i e V e it. Arriving at Beaupr', we went to the hospital. They told (Grannie that) the cin? der was embed? ded; it would need surgery. She wouldn't let them. The train at that time stayed at the station. At that time there were no motels or anything, so we just stayed on the train. That's where we ate and slept. 1 took her back to the train, telling her I was going to make the Holy Stairs (that is, climb the Holy Stairs on her knees) for her and my mother. So when I got to the top of the stairs--I don't know if I put this in there (in the manuscript). Probably I shouldn't have spoken about it: it's hard for people to believe. I got to the top of the stairs and I went around, and I was making the Stations of the Cross. And I was just at the tenth Station-- there's a picture (where the two sol? diers are abusing Jesus). Well, they're scourging him. You know, he was being whipped and everything else before.... But anyway, I got up there. And I was at the tenth station, and I happened to look up. And his head is down like this, you know--it was down

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