A few months ago I was honoured to be asked to write the foreword to a book celebrating the life of Rosie Gil, a woman who epitomized the path to sanctity to be found in the openness to life. A pioneer of Catholic homeschooling, Rosie Gil’s devotion to her faith and family is truly inspiring. 

The book is now available: www.seeyouinheavenbook.com

 

Here’s my Foreword:

 

See You in Heaven

The life of Rose Lee Gil

 

Foreword

by Joseph Pearce

 

I never knew Rosie Gil because her earthly life passed away before I had the opportunity to meet her. Yet, in spite of this, I feel that I know her very well. The reason is that I have met her posthumously in the spiritual scrapbook of her life which this book represents. In the following pages Rosie’s own words of wisdom and love are interwoven with the memories of her daughter, Maria.

Wisdom and Love … In the life of Rosie Gil, as in the lives of the saints, these two great gifts are always inextricably interwoven; inseparable because they are ultimately One, united in the Divine Source from which they have their being.   

Rosie Gil was a homeschooling mother of eight who exalted the vocation of motherhood and assisted others in educating their own children. Rosie and her husband Robert organized the first homeschool organization in Louisiana and then the first Catholic homeschool organization in Alabama. Yet these are the bare bones of her life. The flesh was always the Word of God, which she lived and loved and which she taught others to live and love, not least of whom were her own children.

In our darkened and wicked world, which destroys marriage, denigrates motherhood and slaughters children, we need the powerful witness of Rosie Gil, a loving wife and mother who raised her children with the self-sacrificial heart of true love. As with the lives of the saints, she is a candle in the dark. But she is also a flame of the Family, shining forth the hope of the Home to the hopeless and homeless. Maria Gil, the author of this little gem of sanity and sanctity, hopes that it will serve as “a much needed handguide for women and mothers in a very confused world” and that it will be “a treasure for Catholic homeschool mothers and their families”. It is, however, a pearl beyond the price of any earthly treasure because it shows us that the hearth of home is a Mother’s heart.

I’d like to address my final words not to the reader who is about to be blessed by this book but to Rosie Gil herself whose life has been a blessing to all who knew her and to all who, through this slim volume, are destined to know her.

As the title of this little book suggests, Rosie Gil, we may indeed hope to see you in heaven. In the meantime, we give thanks for seeing a glimpse of heaven in the holiness of your life on earth. Through your love of Christ and His Church and in your Christian example of true motherhood, you have blessed us all. May flights of angels sing you to your reward, Rosie Gil, and may your posthumous presence continue to bless those of us still struggling in the Vale of Tears.