The Mysteries of Moonbeam

This series of meditations was written for an online Rosary group I participate in; for each 54-day Novena, members take turns writing reflections on each of the three traditional sets of Mysteries (Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious), which are cycled through every three days. As we pray the Mysteries, we journey with Our Lady St. Mary, over and over again, through the never-ending cycle of birth, death, and renewal. As I travel this way, more and more Mary becomes for me as much a face of God the Mother as she is the Mother of God.

The Mysteries of the Rosary include: the Joyful Mysteries of the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, the Presentation at the Temple, and the Finding at the Temple; the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion; and the Glorious Mysteries of the Resurrection, Ascension, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Assumption of Mary, and the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven & Earth.

I wrote this cycle about our cat, Moonbeam, and the way the Mysteries glimmered through our journey with her—as they do through all of life.

The Joyful Mysteries

“I want a cat.” Little did I understand the magic that had been released with those words, rippling forward and backwards through time, reordering events and arranging synchronous meetings as seeming chance encounters. She had spoken her heart’s desire, after all.

Or maybe it was the universe that was reordering us, Our Lady planting the desire and calling forth the words, so as to set us in the flow of events she had already planned.

“No, a dog,” I said. Cats are boring. Aloof. Unaffectionate. Right? “I’ll take care of everything, you won't have to do anything,” she promised. (Little did I know that, as I rose the earliest, I’d be the one to feed her almost every morning… and every evening, too. Or that I would fall in love.)

“Please, I want a cat.”

We were newly married. We’d met a year-and-a-half before at an organic farm run by Episcopalian nuns (or, as they liked to call themselves, “Episco-pagans”). I’d moved there after seminary, and Yanick showed up as a farm intern from NYC. We were planning a year-long engagement, but then the pieces of the next chapter of our life began to fall into place much more quickly than we had expected. As I was an Episcopal priest, and we were moving together, everyone expected us to be married before I began my new job.

Whatever, we thought. We knew what we wanted, so why not speed things up? We looked at the month of September on the calendar. What dates looked special? The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary—September 8th. That was it. We both had a devotion to Mary (Yanick had once told me that Mary was her “favorite face of God”). What better day to be married on? We’d hold the ceremony in the garden behind the church where I’d start working the following month. Our priest friend Suzanne, who we also met at the farm, would officiate. We’d just have our moms there. We’d have a big party sometime later. It would be simple, perfect.

It was. It was the most beautiful day. Blue skies and birdsong. Readings from The Song of Songs, Rumi, and The Gospel of John. We walked the outdoor labyrinth together and exchanged our vows at its center. We shared the bread and wine of Holy Eucharist at the stone altar (“It looks so pagan!” my own inner Episco-pagan exclaimed with delight when I first saw it, the search committee member giving us the tour looking askance). It was a magical morning. And that night there was a “super moon”—a full moon that occurs when the moon is at the closest point in its elliptical orbit to Earth.

“I really want a cat,” she said. Who would have guessed that my first Sunday at the little Woodstock parish church would just happen to coincide with the annual Blessing of the Animals in honor of the feast of St. Francis? The church was filled with cats and dogs and favorite stuffed animals brought by children, all there to receive a blessing. I knew that we humans were actually the ones being blessed.

After worship we all gathered in the garden, where a few weeks before Yanick and I had been married. As each person or family brought forward their beloved animals, I tweaked the usual blessing—making it also a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessing each of these beings was in our lives. It didn’t seem right to assume the blessing went in one direction only.

And then suddenly a couple showed up. They hadn’t been there for worship. No one knew them. They were holding not the end of a leash, but a large pet crate—filled with a mama cat and her new litter of kittens. Yes, here for a blessing—but also looking for homes. Yanick’s eyes glowed. “Can we have one?”

Yanick had always wanted a cat of her own. While she didn’t have a cat growing up, her mother currently lived with an orange boy-cat named Peewee (who happened to be the heftiest cat I had ever seen); Yanick loved him, and so she first gravitated to a little orange boy in the litter. It was decided. He was the one. But then, all of a sudden, a teeny grey-striped tabby girl reached up with her little paw and began to bat gently at the Miraculous Medal hanging from Yanick’s neck.

“Matthew, she has a devotion to the Blessed Mother!” Yanick said. And that was that. No orange boy for us.

The couple had already named each kitten. Because of her silver fur, this one was called Moonbeam. Later, we would think about changing the name, but no, it was perfect. But there was a further reason for the naming, the woman explained—“She was born the night of the super moon.” We looked at each other. Our wedding night. The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This had been a done deal way before we arrived at church that morning.

She told us the kittens would need a few more weeks to be weaned, but then we could pick Moonbeam up. “Oh, what are your names?” we asked the couple. “I’m Regina,” the woman replied, giving us her phone number. That final little Marian wink was almost too much.

I was so wrong about cats. She was so affectionate. She snuggled in between us in the bed at night, and then would crawl all the way down under the covers to our feet, where she would fall asleep. She gave us little kisses on our foreheads, noses, and cheeks with her sandpaper tongue. We gave her little kisses everywhere. She sat in my lap and purred every morning as my prayer beads moved through my fingers. She became the heartbeat of our home.

“I want a cat,” Yanick said. It turns out, we both did.

The Sorrowful Mysteries 

The Sorrowful Mysteries are already there—embedded, hidden, lurking—within the Joyful Mysteries. “And a sword shall pierce your heart, too,” Simeon tells Mary during the Presentation at the Temple. The Mysteries are always inter-braided, each set present in and glimmering through the others. 

A year or so after Moonbeam came into our lives, Regina and her husband showed up again. I was at my office, incredibly stressed, behind on my work, and had already dealt with one too many interruptions. I HAD to finish the document I was working on NOW. And then suddenly I looked up and saw the two of them walking towards my door.  

I literally closed the door in their faces. I kid you not. Right in their faces. I don’t know what they want, but they didn’t schedule an appointment, and I DON’T HAVE THE TIME. Probably only a second passed, during which I thought, “What the f*** did you just do?”, took a breath, and opened the door. “I’m so sorry I closed the door like that. I’m just really stressed. How are you? What brings you by?” I gave them my full attention, and my anxiety dissolved. 

“Our dog just died,” Regina said. “We thought you could say a prayer with us.” I did not expect what happened next. They led me to their car. They had brought their dead dog’s body with them. And I picked him up. We held him and blessed him together, praying for his journey onward, giving thanks for his life, and asking for the peace that passes understanding. It was so weird. And moving. And I was strangely grateful to have been invited into this moment, and glad I opened the door. And then they were gone again. 

“And a sword shall pierce your heart, too.” 

* * * * * 

It’s been seven years since Moonbeam arrived in our lives, and about three months ago her little voice started to crack strangely when she talked to us. It was oddly raspy. Yanick thought it was just age, but something seemed wrong to me. At first, we ignored it. It’ll probably just go away.

But it didn’t. Little by little it became more pronounced, until her breathing began to sound gurgly. Wet. And her energy began to decline. We called the vet, scheduled an appointment, and began anxiously Googling her symptoms. It could be cat asthma. Or congestive heart failure. Or lung worms. The possibilities were endless. And day by day she was getting worse. Not eating. Hiding in the closet. 

But the vet would know. She would sort it out. Moonbeam would get better. The appointment was just a few days away. Finally, the day came, and the doctor gave Moonbeam a nebulizer treatment, started her on medications that might help, and began running tests. But she was also upfront with us—this didn’t look good, and she said there was a 50/50 chance—and then corrected herself to 60/40—that Moonbeam would die. We were devastated.

We had a twelve-day trip planned, leaving that weekend, to visit Yanick’s grandmother in France—and now we would do anything to change it. But we couldn’t. Her grandmother’s health wasn’t well, my mother-in-law was traveling with us, and the tickets were already booked. We had to go. The vet told us Moonbeam might die while we were away. If that happened, would we want her cremated? Yanick broke down in tears. How was this all moving so quickly? Moonbeam’s seventh birthday—our anniversary!—was next month. She still had at least half of her life ahead of her. None of this made sense. 

Our best friend Aidan watched her while we were gone, and took her back for more treatments and tests. And then one night he messaged us in France to say that the vet believed Moonbeam had cancer, which had spread from her lungs to her brain. She probably would not survive until we got home. 

Stunned, I walked out into the night and prayed the rosary, begging Our Lady to heal her. “Please, Lady, please, heal my baby. Please!” When I got back to the room we cried ourselves to sleep. 

But then she was still there when we got home. And happy to see us! So many purrs and kitty kisses. And she seemed to be getting better, Aidan said. Then the vet told us it wasn’t cancer, after all. It was a miracle! Thank you, Lady! 

But her improvement plateaued. She seemed sullen, and tired all the time. She continued to have daily hacking, coughing fits that broke our hearts, and her breathing still sounded terrible. It was as if all of her energy was spent on just breathing. After an echocardiogram that still didn’t give us answers, our vet recommended we see a specialist. 

The appointment fell on September 7th, the day before her seventh birthday—the day before the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The specialist was located an hour away in Brewster—oddly enough, the town with the nuns and the farm, where Yanick and I had met. Moonbeam howled and panted the whole car ride there. We assured her everything would be okay. We met her new doctor, who explained the tests he wanted to run, and said she’d likely be ready to go home in a few hours, although there was a chance she might need to stay overnight. 

So we went to see the sisters. It was a lovely visit, and was the first time Yanick had been back since we moved away seven years earlier. Sr. Helena Marie loaded us up with her homemade black currant wine and blackberry and amaretto liqueurs and made sure we tasted her newly distilled gin. 

The phone rang just as we were heading into chapel to pray First Vespers of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Moonbeam must be ready to be picked up!—we’d call them back right after prayer. In Christian liturgical time, a feast begins the evening of the day before—and so Moonbeam was now officially seven, and our anniversary had begun! We concluded Vespers with a sung Salve Regina, and Yanick stepped out to return the call. And then our world fell apart. 

During a routine test to check the fluid in her lungs, the doctor discovered they were filled with blood and mucus. Although she was sedated, Moonbeam aspirated during the procedure. And her heart stopped. CPR was performed for twenty minutes. But they couldn’t bring her back. 

I screamed in the car on the way to the hospital. I beat the steering wheel with my fists. My left hand is still slightly sore. When we arrived, they gave us a private room, brought her to us in a little cardboard coffin, and left us alone. We took her body out of the box and took turns holding her in our arms. I think now of Our Lady, holding her son in the Pietà.

She was still warm, still soft, still our baby. We told her we were so sorry. We told her how much we loved her. When our tears finally began to subside, we laid her back in the box, and carried her to the front desk.  It seemed a cruel joke to now pay the expensive bill for her visit, but of course the doctors still deserved to be compensated for their work.

It’s been twelve days since she left us. I’ve finally made it a full day without crying. Our house still feels wrong. Empty. We built this life, this home, with her, after all. Born on our wedding night, we became a family together. Really, she taught us how to be a family. We don’t know a life apart from her. And now she’s not there for any of our routines. Not there to make the coffee with me in the morning, or to flop on the floor and ask for kisses. Not there in my lap when I pray. All the rules have suddenly changed. It doesn’t matter anymore if I leave the door open when I step outside after she's come in for the night. I don’t have to fill her water glass on the nightstand. And yet, I still see her out of the corner of my eye everywhere. 

Seven years Our Lady gave her to us. I could go on about the symbolism of that—seven, a number of completion, of wholeness. See what Our Lady did there? And to bring us back to the place where we met! But it doesn’t feel complete, or whole. 

“And a sword shall pierce your heart, too.”  

I miss you, my little love. My darling angel-baby. My sweet Moonbeam. Papa misses you so much.

 The Glorious Mysteries  

The oldest recorded accounts of the Assumption of Mary come from the 6th century. In his Life of the Virgin, St. Maximus the Confessor tells of the apostles gathering around Mary’s bed in her final hours: “They fell down before her and begged her not to leave them as orphans, but if she were to go forth from the world, to be with them through grace and intercession.” 

No longer a maiden but a holy crone, and knowing that she is dying, she blesses them and promises, “I will not cease to pray and intercede for you—and for the entire world.” Then closing her eyes, Maximus says, “she slept a sweet and pleasant sleep.” “The holy apostles encircled the bed on which lay the holy Theotokos’ body, wider than heaven. They honored it with hymns and praise; they embraced it with fear and trembling.” And John, whom from the cross Jesus entrusted to her, and she to him, “censed the holy body of the queen with fragrant incense and drenched it with tears.” 

Together they “took upon their shoulders the bed, vested and glorious with the light of the holy queen… And they brought it to Gethsemane, and they laid in the tomb the immaculate body…” For three days they remained with her, singing in vigil. On the third day Thomas arrived late, and pleaded with them to open the tomb so that he could see her. When they did, “they did not find the glorious body of the holy mother of Christ, for it had been translated…” 

Translated. We translate words from one language to another. What is it to translate a body? To render the poetry of our flesh, spoken forth in time, into the language of Eternity? 

When Moonbeam died, we already had a plan in place for her body. An artist friend in Woodstock kept the skull of his beloved cat on a shelf in his studio, gazing down at him daily as he worked. He said could still see his cat’s whole personality held in the lines of those bones whenever he looked at them. He had let his little companion’s body return to the earth, but above ground in the forest, resting in a contraption he’d built to prevent scavengers from carrying the body away. When the insects and microbes had done their work, he went back for the bones. When Moonbeam died, we would take her body to him. He would take care of the rest. 

That was our plan, but then when I sat with her body, it just didn’t feel right. What do you want, little one? I kept feeling a magnetic tug that said she wanted to be in the earth on the land she knew and loved. But I was just being sentimental, right? Didn’t we want her little skull to kiss? But I couldn’t get away from that feeling. She didn’t want to be left above ground. She wanted to be enfolded by the Mother, supporting us from under our feet. So I asked her to show me where she wanted to be. Near the Kuan Yin statue? Or at the feet of Mary, surrounded by an archway of roses?  

No, it was at the center of a little flower bed, circled with stones, and now filled with weeds, daffodil bulbs that would come up in the spring, and a broken St. Francis statue that had taken a topple during a storm, his head resting in the little basin held in his hand (we joked that he was now a statue of John the Baptist). We did first meet her during the Blessing of the Animals—a celebration of St. Francis. Okay then, that’s where she would go. 

For a few days, her body remained in the little cardboard coffin, resting in our shed. It was starting to get a little creepy, as each day Yanick or I would wander to the shed, open the box, and sit with her, talk with her, cry. We needed closure, needed to let her go. We needed for her to be translated. 

We planned a funeral for Sunday afternoon. I weeded the little garden and dug her grave. Yanick lined her little coffin with catnip and flowers and censed her with incense. Friends from the monastery down the hill came up to join us. We sang “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small” and read from the Gospel of Luke, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.” 

Our friend Aidan, who had cared for her while we were way, officiated. As he said the words of the Committal, I lifted her body from the box and placed her in the earth. We laid flowers on top of her, and then handfuls of dirt. I took the shovel and filled the rest of the grave. We felt more at peace once she was in the ground. It felt right and good to see the dirt spilling over her, her dirt, here where she lived her life.  

The morning after we buried her, our hens seemed to finally understand, and to begin to mourn. Usually quick to run out the gate whenever we open their pen, they didn’t want to leave. Moonbeam had been their rooster, allowing them to feel a bit bolder in wide open spaces, knowing they were safe from predators if she was there. At first, she hated it when we welcomed her “chicken sisters” onto the land. But they eventually warmed to each other, and I’m certain that in the end she felt protective of her little flock. They’re getting used to her absence now, too. 

I say hello, or I love you, when I pass her cairn. Only this morning I glued Francis’ head back on. Little by little the grief is gentling. Our Moonbeam has been translated. Slowly, I’m learning to read the language she’s written in now.