God calls many souls home each day whose lives are often encapsulated in a farewell obituary. Most of these remembrances sound similar, listing family members and the earthly accomplishments of a person and maybe even some personal anecdotes. But one sentence in a recent obit was different than what you typically see.
“Her greatest calling in life was to get the souls of her family, friends and others ready to enter heaven.”
That’s the heart of a mother speaking. And isn’t that what everyone’s calling should be? The world would be a much better place if more people embraced that calling.
The Catholic catechism teaches us that God made each person to show His goodness and to share His everlasting happiness in heaven, and that to reach heaven we must know, love and serve God in this world.
It’s clear from that sentence in the obituary and from speaking with family members that Peggy Shimp did all she could to bring each member of her family closer to eternal salvation.
The Columbus resident and the longest living original member of St. Agatha Church died July 28 of congestive heart failure at age 90 after living an exemplary Catholic life.
Her acts of charity were voluminous. We’ll get into that in a moment. But most important to her, and what she unceasingly prayed for, was that each family member remain faithful to Our Lord and his Church.
She kept an index card that included the names of friends and family whom she prayed for every morning. As she neared her final days last month and was transferred from a hospital to a rehabilitation facility and then to hospice care, she asked that three items be brought to her. One was a rosary, one was that prayer list and one was the Magnificat daily Mass worship aid.
“The last thing I read before she stopped breathing in hospice was the Mass readings for the day in the Magnificat,” Fred Shimp, one of her five sons, related. “I know she heard me but wasn’t responding with any certainty. As soon I finished the last page, within minutes she stopped breathing.”
Late in life, she had expressed to her sons that she wondered why God had kept her alive so long.
“I said, ‘Well, Mom, you’ve got a lot to offer,” Fred explained. “I came back another time, maybe a month or two later, and she said, ‘I know why. I’m supposed to pray and help get all my grandkids to heaven.’ And I said, ‘Mom, I think you’re right. I think your prayers are very powerful.’”
She religiously sent family members birthday cards offering Masses for them. That was evident, Fred said, in the volume of mail she received from religious orders to whom she sent donations for Mass intentions for family and friends on their birthdays.
“She thought it was really important for the sisters and nuns to be praying for her kids,” he said. “She did this almost without fail because she was absolutely convinced that Christ and His Church were the path for her family to gain salvation.
“A lot of people have different things that keep them up at night, like how to pay for college and getting a promotion at work. But what literally kept her up at night was, she worried that her grandkids and kids weren’t going to get to heaven. There was just this constant notion that there’s heaven and there’s no other place, and she wanted to do everything you possibly can do to steer them there.”
As a mother, she dealt with hardships. One of her sons was born with a brain defect that, after a few years, necessitated care in a special facility.
“She told me what got her through that was her belief that Mother Mary would intercede for her as difficult and traumatic as it was,” Fred recalled. “When she dropped him off, she said, ‘Mary, I can’t be with him 24 hours a day, and so I need you to watch over him.’ That gave her great peace.”
She insisted when her five sons were growing up that they learned their Catholic faith, received the sacraments and went to Mass. That wasn’t easy in the 1970s when a secularization of the culture and changes in the Church led many people astray.
Her faithful witness not only included her spiritual life, but she also found time to do corporal works of mercy for St. Agatha parish and in the community, which included delivering meals to those in need and volunteering at Riverside Methodist Hospital and the Red Cross for many years.
“As young kids, you don’t realize the impact of your parents living their faith has on your formation as a person until you get old enough to start to appreciate that,” Fred said. “But as my brothers grew up, we started seeing the importance of taking time to serve others in the name of Christ and doing it.”
In addition to praying unceasingly, she frequently went to confession.
“Every once in a while, she told my brothers what she confessed. We’d look at each other and say, ‘You made a trip for that?’” Fred joked. “She would say, ‘One of my grandkids is not going to Mass, and maybe I didn’t do something right.’”
Peggy Shimp understood that when Our Lord blessed her with five children, and then 18 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, He entrusted her with the earthly care of their bodies and souls. She also believed that mothers and fathers will be judged in part not on whether their sons and daughters achieved worldly success but for what they did to instill faith in their children and others.
Life on earth isn’t about fame or fortune, achieving material success or impressing others. Eternal life is the highest calling, and it’s clear she wanted to lead as many souls to heaven as possible.
How the world today needs more moms like Peggy Shimp, whose greatest desire is the eternal reward of heaven.
If you’re a young mother, you’d be wise to follow her example.