Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone . For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulders, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed as on the day of Midian.” Isaiah 9: 1- 2). Last year, I ended my post, “Stigmatized,” with “Stay With Me, Lord,” a beautiful prayer after Communion penned by Padre Pio, one of the patrons of These Stone Walls. Watch Mulheres Do Mar with english subtitles in 720p.

I wrote of him again last September, and of the many deaths he knew, in “Saints Alive! Padre Pio and the Stigmata.”In his prayer after Communion, Saint Pio wrote: “Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late; the days are coming to a close and life is passing. Death, judgment and eternity are drawing near. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way, and for that I need You. It is getting late and death approaches.

I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows.”In “The True Story of Thanksgiving,” I described in detail what I was doing at the age of ten on November 2. President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas. Last month in “At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming,” I wrote of the events of September 1.

We who live through the sadness and trauma of such days always seem to remember exactly what we were doing when these events unfolded. In “At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming,” I wrote of how the scandal in the Catholic Church became a media event in Boston and rippled through the country just weeks after the terrorist attacks of 9/1. It was an awfully painful time for me in prison because we had fought for seven years to revisit my own case, and we made some progress. Then, as Advent commenced in 2. Catholic Church swept the nation and once again derailed my defense.

Additionally, I had spent a year gathering documents as best I could and sending them to The Wall Street Journal where a writer had taken an interest in my case. In the first days of December, 2. I learned that everything I had collected and sent was among the collateral damage of 9/1. The offices of The Wall Street Journal were near the Twin Towers, and were destroyed when the towers collapsed. Among the far greater tragedies, this set our efforts back many years. YOU KNOW NOT THE DAY OR THE HOURThen death came. It came with stealth and great tragedy to a very dear friend, a co- worker in ministry and my lifeline to the outside world beyond prison.

Before I was sent to prison, Father Michael Mack and I shared a home with two other priests and members of the Servants of the Paraclete Order in New Mexico. As I described in “The Mirror of Justice Cracked,” when I was falsely accused and faced trial in 1. Father Mike and the Servants of the Paraclete became the face of the Church for me when the bishop and priests of my own diocese simply fled in fear and panic.

On the day that I left that home to face trial in New Hampshire in September, 1. Father Mike Mack was there at the door to see me off, to give me hope, and to assure me that he would be there as my friend no matter what the outcome.

Over the ensuing years in prison, I clung to that promise. Father Mike was a regular correspondent, and we frequently spoke by telephone. I walked with him as he discerned a transition from religious life to ministry as a priest in a rural New Mexico diocese that desperately needed priests. I knew that Father Mike’s struggle with his vocation was as much motivated by the needs of the people of that diocese as by his own natural wish for happiness and fulfillment in ministry. As a priest in prison with no options and little sense of priestly purpose, I cherished being able to advise and assist my friend on this journey. In early December, 2.

Father Mike made his decision. He was going to remain a member of the Servants of the Paraclete Order and return to the community’s home where we both once lived. He arrived there late in the night of December 7, 2. Eve of the Immaculate Conception, and two weeks before his 6. It was barely three months after the 9/1.

Boston and then across the nation. Upon arrival at home that night, Father Mike sat at a small desk and wrote a letter to me describing that he was at peace with his decision and with being home again at last. When he finished the letter, he took it outside to leave in the mailbox for the postman to pick up the next morning. Father Mike returned to the house not knowing that on that very night, just before he arrived, a desperate criminal had broken into the back door with a hatchet, and was hiding in a closet in the very room where Father Mike wrote his last words to me. They came face to face when Fr. Mike returned to the house after mailing that letter. Father Mike’s body was discovered in the house the next day.

He had been murdered by the blade of a hatchet. No one knew right away that he was there because the killer took his car and fled. Before Father Mike’s body was discovered, his letter to me was picked up by the postman and sent on its way. One of the many hazards of prison is that no one can telephone me or send me e- mail. I did not at that time have the support systems that I have been blessed with through Suzanne and Charlene and These Stone Walls. Three days later, I sat at a table just outside my prison cell.

Father Mike’s letter had been given to me at mail call that night.