The Healing Journey

June 25, 2026

The Blank Page

By Laura Brennan

We hold onto the Sacraments as intangible treasures given to us by our Father in Heaven. In our hands, we hold His word. Upon the death of my beloved Grandma, my greatest model of faith, I inherited her red leather-bound Bible. I’m not a reader, though, so my favorite thing to do with the Bible is to open it to the pages with Grandma’s handwriting: the “Family Record” of marriages, births, Baptisms, First Communions, and Confirmations.

My grandma used to tell me that as a child, she always thought she would be a nun. Upon meeting my grandpa, she knew otherwise. When she was blessed with four sons, she said, “Oh, God didn’t want me to be a nun, He wanted me to be the mother of a priest.” I look at the blank page in the Bible to record “Holy Orders and Religious Life” and know that wasn’t God’s plan either. Grandma’s mighty prayers make me wonder if one of her descendants will one day fill one of those blank lines.

My dad was not destined to be a priest, though. He loved telling the stories of Sunday mornings of his youth. He knew Mass was a must. So, he rode his bike to St. Thomas Aquinas, grabbed his receipt in the form of a bulletin from the vestibule, and rode on to a friend’s house for the hour. He proudly handed the bulletin to his mom upon his return home.

My dad matured in his faith and became a great model to me, but he never quite outgrew that childhood spirit. He prayed his Rosary at stop lights and attended sunrise Mass alone on Christmas morning while we were sleeping teenagers, even though he had joined us for Mass on Christmas Eve.

When he became a grandpa, he joined the kids on roller coasters and for cotton candy. He took them to be sized for their first two-wheelers and was always up for a round of golf or an afternoon of fishing. They loved when he joined us at Mass, but he got “the look” from me because he was always cracking quiet jokes. Never during the Consecration, though – his mother taught him well.

Dad lived fully and died suddenly. He was out on a charity bike ride when he had a heart attack. Dad’s sacraments were recorded in the family Bible in his mom’s hand, but the page for “Extreme Unction” (the Anointing of the Sick) never bore his name.

I knew my dad loved Jesus. I also knew that he was aware of his own playful spirit and his need for reconciliation. He went as quietly and surely as he did to sunrise Mass on Christmas morning. I must imagine that at some point in the confessional he enjoyed sharing the story of skipping Masses in his youth. Years after his death, that blank page still stared back at me, a free and unrealized gift of God’s grace – the Anointing of the Sick.

I flipped it closed, keeping only the red leather cover open. There were prayer cards and newspaper clippings tucked in the front cover. Something else. A thick piece of parchment with an ornate border, an image of Pope Paul VI, and a raised seal with Latin I could not read. Some of the English words rose to my gaze, though: Dad’s family name, “humbly prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness… Apostolic Benediction…”

Then these words: “A Plenary Indulgence to be gained at the hour of death, on condition that, being truly sorry for their sins, but unable to confess them and to receive the holy Viaticum, they shall at least invoke with their lips or heart the Holy Name of Jesus.”

Dated: 1967. In 1967, dad was 11 years old, skipping Mass and riding his bike to a friend’s house instead. In 1967, Grandma added this page to her treasured Bible. In 1967, his mom, my dear grandma, was protecting his soul in case he died unable to confess his sins. Forty-nine years later, on his bike, by God’s grace and the prayers of his mother, I am so very sure dad had the name of Jesus on his heart.

(Writer Laura Brennan is a lifelong member of St. Rose of Lima Parish.)

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