Dear Melissa,

Your question reminds me very much of one I was asked by a man shortly after he had suffered a heart attack and had been at the gates of death. Against all the doctors' predictions he had pulled through, but nevertheless he was agitated and he explained it like this: "I have always been a practicing Catholic, I believe in heaven; I know my brother, my wife and my parents are there, yet when I felt myself dying I just didn't want to, I held on and fought it. What's wrong with my faith? Why couldn't I let go if I really believe in heaven?"

The answer is not necessarily because there is something wrong, but simply because we are human. God's grace does not obliterate our mind, senses or feelings taking them out of the picture, it simply gives us a supernatural capacity to go beyond them, not to base our actions on them but on the realities we do not see. This oblation is true measure of our faith. We all have our tiny Gethsemane to live, and we are never alone as we do so. God bless.