Recipe For Happiness

From Today's Morning Prayer (Lauds)

Happy the nation whose lord is God,
the people he has chosen as his inheritance.

This morning's prayers brought back a memory to me from 2004. My father had died just weeks earlier, and that February night, I had a dream. I captured the memory in my spiritual journal (and it is posted below). In time, I realized that Dad was talking to me about the journey I was beginning - though I didn't know it yet. But I latched on to the word "happy" - and when I picked up a book by St. Augustine - Confessions - I ran across the definition of happiness (happy is the one who loves and serves God alone). It was an important moment in my journey home.

A year later, I was in RCIA class and eager to enter Mother Church. I asked God for a sign - a signal to show me that Dad was safely in the arms of God. I had written a poem about that dream, and I prayed for it to be published one day, and when I saw it in print, I would know that all was well with my father.

It was unprecidented. I had never published any piece of poetry - and I had never published anything in a magazine. But after my conversion, Canticle magazine did take that poem and publish it. And in that same issue, Father Ed Silvia had an article on Purgatory and what happens when we pray for someone who has already passed into the beatific vision. I knew I had my answer.


February 2004 -
I had a dream last night. It was not a metaphorical dream. It was real. Like being more awake than when I am awake. Dad sat in front of me along a shore. Tufts of grass dotted the peaceful seaside. Nothing disturbed the moment, not even the tide. There were no birds in the sky, no heavy breeze. Dad’s face was shining, full of love, his countenance radiant. He said “I love you.” And the love I felt for him was so great, so full, that I spontaneously responded, “I love you too, Dad.” Then, Dad became full of energy, bubbling over with things he wanted to say, and he began to speak fast and furious about something of great importance. None of the words made any sense. He was speaking in a language I could not understand. I tried to stop him, but he continued. I said, with some degree of irritation, “Dad, I can’t understand a word of what you are saying.” He stopped abruptly and looked off to his right—beyond my periphery—and paused. It was like he could see and hear someone that remained hidden from me. Then he looked at me again and said softly, lovingly, “I just want you to be happy.” In that moment, I had no memory of his death. I had no memory of anything that had happened in the previous two months. And so I said, almost laughing, “But I am happy!”

And then I remembered, Dad is dead.

And the thought came to me, how can I ever be happy again? I woke up crying. I knew that it had not been a dream. I had been with Dad. I had been permitted to hear him say I love you and to say it to him in return. I had not been permitted to know the wonderful truths that he had so wanted me to know, but I knew (and still know) that I will one day understand it all.

And maybe I’ll even be happy again.

*I now know that the words I could not understand - they were words of Truth, which God would translate for me through the power of conversion. In short, I would discover that One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. And, I would be happy. . .