“Like a sailor who sees his broken vessel as he approaches the port... approaching now the hour of freedom, the end of his labors... he sings and rejoices with the proximity of death which will bring him such a great good (EEO II, EE, 618)

In the shadow of the CAPITULAR YEAR,  Father Henry, you have called us to this Community of Santo Espiritu.

Animated by the faith of the Franciscans, as the pine trees surround the Monastery, you received the gift you had so often requested, to die of love, to come face to face with Love, free at last from all limitation of your flesh.

And your death was as you wished it to be, a stroke that breaks like the waves of the sea, as the arrival of a ship to shore after a storm.

On a day like today, 128 years ago, we were born to life as a body.

Today we need to abandon it in order to grow.

We have the experience of many years, five generations, and we bear the weight of fear, of insecurity, irrelevance, weakness and at the same time we feel hope that this is the way to our liberation.

Today we ask you, Father, to obtain for us that same grace that lived in you.  Give us the love of Teresa to enable us to break away from all that prevents us from flying in the winds of the Holy Spirit.

Before leaving this place, may your presence give us the strength to spend our Paschal season and wish to die in order to live.