At the age of 46, she had lost her battle with cancer and died. She left behind her husband and two small children. She had asked me to preach at her requiem. I had been able to talk to her for a long time a few days before her death. In our being there for each other - the seriously ill woman, her sister and I - we had been able to experience the one who had revealed himself to Moses as the I-am-there. We had been given a sense of heaven, heaven as the state in which we will be completely there - close to each other, no longer bound by space and time. - In addition to personal memories of the deceased, I recounted this last conversation with her in the sermon. After the mass, a priest I didn't know approached me. After the mass, a priest I didn't know came up to me. Deeply moved, he told me: ‘I am so touched by how personally and at the same time faithfully you were able to speak. My eyes were opened to the heaven below us, thank you!’
