Last month we unexpectedly lost a dear friend of ours here at Anima, Louisa Ashton. In fact she was a dear friend to many, especially across the Catholic community of Melbourne.

She had many struggles and disappointments in her life which were magnified more so in the last few years. Sometimes, dreams, drive and all the mindset skills in the world cannot change what happens to you. Despite the world’s narrative that you are in control, you aren’t. Our world is one of sin, humanness and natural order. Original sin, our own failings and the natural world do affect both our own lives and the lives of others. The only part we can really control or choose is how we react to the travesties that we come across in this ‘vale of tears’.

What was it about Louisa’s life that linked her to so many people? What was it that made a large number of people cram themselves on an extremely hot day, into a small suburban church, to pray for a woman whose life was not overtly ‘extraordinary’.

I sat in the Church as the beautiful funeral ceremony went on and pondered this question. The parish priest, Fr Dillon, in quite honestly the best sermon I have ever heard at a funeral, put his finger on it. She was of the ‘John Paul II generation’ who took his message to heart and really with her whole life, tried to live it. What was that? This Pope who wrote so much, what did his message really come down to? It really was very simple.

“It is Jesus that you seek.”

Louisa focused her life on searching for the face of Christ and encouraging others to do the same and in doing so, possibly did more for evangelisation than any program ever did.

I read recently in “To know Christ Jesus” by Frank Sheed, something that really hit home to me as to what this means, “…our salvation is not all that matters in religion, or even what matters most.”

Doesn’t that make you pause even for just a second?

Our purpose in life here is to search for Christ. Find Him, know Him, love Him. This means that our salvation comes from this purpose. Our goal is to be with Christ, not to make it to some kind of “safe home-base” called heaven because we followed all the rules, but rather, we make it to heaven because we want to be with Love Himself. Heaven, salvation itself, is not the primary aim; Christ is.   

This was the difference I felt at Louisa’s funeral. She didn’t strive for heaven per se. She strove for Christ. The people didn’t come to her funeral because she was some kind of exemplar of virtue on this earth who had a million social media followers and who wrote all the “how tos” about how to get to heaven. It was that in her very ordinariness, she turned towards Christ. It was that even when things were hard, even through her own difficulties and failings, it was Jesus for whom she searched to soothe her soul. 

That, my friends, is what made people come. It was obvious to all who knew her that she loved Christ and so we all came together, in that most Catholic of ways, to pray for her, so that we could help her on her way to be with the One she strove for.

As you discern your disciplines for this Lent, keep in mind “It is Jesus that you seek.” And please, because I know she would request this, keep the repose of Louisa’s soul in your prayers so that she may enter His Glory.

~Monica Russell