Earlier today while I was at the Lourdes in a Day –a spiritual encounter for those who senior, sick or in some way in need of healing– sponsored by the Order of Malta-CT North East Area– at St Peter Claver Church (West Hartford), I learned of a friend’s sudden death. Fr. Chris Ford and I were chatting about the day and I brought up that a friend, who had been at Lourdes in a Day last year, and benefitted from the experience, missed this year because he was to start a new chapter in his life at Thomas Aquinas College. Fr. Chris interrupted me to say that John died. His funeral was last week. I was –and continue to be– in shock and dismay: how could this happen?<\/p>\n
John Kozak’s obit is here<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. It is a nicely composed biography of a young man whose life came to a tragic and unexpected end at 24 as a consequence of mental illness. He did not commit suicide. The death, as I understand it, was an accident. It was a struggle that encircled him, challenging is ability to find meaning and expression. John was a genius, he eager to have a conversation, he desired to be in relationship with the Lord. He was a good kid.<\/p>\n Pray for John’s eternal rest in the Lord’s arms. Pray for John’s family and friends who mourn him.<\/p>\n I am grateful for John’s friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earlier today while I was at the Lourdes in a Day –a spiritual encounter for those who senior, sick or in some way in need of healing– sponsored by the Order of Malta-CT North East Area– at St Peter Claver Church (West Hartford), I learned of a friend’s sudden death. Fr. Chris Ford and I … Continue reading Remembering John<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32423],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37202,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37200\/revisions\/37202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}