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By Root 550 0

reached recovery from her alcoholism! And can you ever forget celebrating Mass at our house after she returned to treatment and your consecrating thirty tiny pieces of bagel for her to have Holy Communion in her room? And the miracle that God performed when the leftover bagel in my bread box became filled with green mold—but none of Lolly’s thirty pieces were affected! You figure it out! As you know, Lolly had been drinking to excess for over twenty-five years, had been in several rehab places during that time, and seemed destined to die of the disease. But this visit of yours and her willingness to try again resulted in her sobriety for the next twenty-five years—years of heaven for both of us and our children!

You have made no secret of your struggles with “the creature”! I have told you, and I believe it is true, that the Devil made you a special target and used booze as his weapon! The Devil is frightened of you, Brother Brennan! Have you ever pondered what you could have been or accomplished without booze? As it is and was, you, as a wounded healer, helped bring hundreds of thousands of us sinners to Christ with your simple mantra: “God loves us just as we are—not as we should be.”

My wife, Lolly, and I were at a breaking point. I did not think I could continue to stay married to someone who was so self-destructive! But I wanted to consult you before moving out or calling a lawyer. When I did call you, Roslyn said that you were en route to Providence, Rhode Island, for a week of renewal at a Catholic church there. Ros also said that you had a layover in Newark to change planes. So I immediately drove to the Newark airport and, believe it or not, found you in the midst of that huge airport! I told you what was going on, and you said that I, under the circumstances, could leave Lolly—after twenty-five years of alcoholic drinking! So I drove back to our house in Manhasset, New York. When I arrived there some three hours later, I found Lolly all cleaned up and as sober as I had seen her in a long time. She announced to me that you were coming for dinner! What had happened was some conservative Catholics at the church you went to visit in Providence found out that you were married and reported it to the bishop. The bishop then forbade that parish to have you speak there, so what did you do? You called Lolly and said you’d like to come to dinner! So I had to turn around and pick you up at LaGuardia and home we came. Lolly could not have been a more willing or welcoming hostess. She loved you, Brennan. After dinner I retired, and you and Lolly sat up and talked almost all night! She had sworn that she would never go back into treatment again, so you can imagine my surprise when, the next morning (Sunday), you told me that Lolly agreed to go back to Brunswick Hospital Rehab! You also asked if I had any Valium in the house, because she could go into convulsions if she did not have a tranquilizer. I told you that I had nothing like it in the house and I surely could not find a doctor to prescribe it on a Sunday! But I went down to our local drugstore, which was owned by a friend (who also was very aware of Lolly’s history—active alcoholics are pretty public), and he gave me three Valium pills without a prescription (he could have lost his license!). Lolly took the pills and we drove out to Brunswick Hospital, about twenty miles east of us on Long Island and a place she had been twice before.

You decided to stay with me in Manhasset for a couple of days. Every morning you would celebrate Mass in my living room. I had only fresh bagels to use as hosts. I would slice a thin layer off a bagel, and you would consecrate it and some grape juice for the body and blood of Christ! I said, “Brennan, would it be sacrilegious to have you consecrate thirty little pieces of bagel that I can put in my pyx and take to Lolly? I know she’d like that and she could have Holy Communion every day of the thirty days she’s scheduled to stay at Brunswick.”

You said, “Great idea! That’s what the early Christians used to do—take Eucharist to each others