{H} arold Gomes wanted us all to be brave. That’s because he was. “A warrior,” is how his little sister described him. A “tender” and “authoritative” one, she said before his funeral Mass. As long as I knew him, he was on a ventilator and in a wheelchair, with muscular dystrophy. And yet, even in the confines of his illness, he lived so free.

Lourdes, France, was where he felt a closeness to God that changed his life. It made him determined to be light in the darkness of the confusion of the world.

Harold incredibly wrote about his suffering in light of that pilgrimage. “GOD permits suffering in order to bring a greater good out of it — the Crucifix is proof! I was moved when I learned that my suffering has great value when it is united with the suffering of Jesus on the Cross. I can offer my suffering to save souls! It was for my good that He allowed me to suffer. He wants me to be a saint. I was in a wheelchair precisely because God loved me!” Christianity became true to him in his living his own dramatic cross.

At his funeral Mass, his sister made clear that Harold hadn’t been a delusional recluse. He hadn’t been trying to escape. He had truly seen love in the message of Christmas and Easter and had seen an invitation to live in union with it more intensely than the distractions of the world often allow.

Earlier this year, he wrote about the conversion of Saint Paul as “a miracle of God’s transforming grace”:

What the Lord did for him, he can do for anyone. If there is hope for him, there is hope for absolutely everyone. We can win the race to win, we can become more than conquerors, we can become great Saints through transformation into Christ and cooperation with his saving, sanctifying grace. Indeed, in baptism, we are already “holy ones” and are set on the path to increasing holiness through ever continual conversion, day by day.

“It is Christmas Eve as I write this message,” Harold wrote last year:

The prospect of going to Christmas Mass, whether in a few hours at midnight, or tomorrow in the midmorning, is now simply impossible for me. I am used to not being able to go to Holy Mass on occasion, and most recently I joined with everyone else in not being able to go during the quarantine. Still, it is difficult. It is even more difficult to have to miss Mass on December 25. God knows that I would like to go and rejoice in the birth of Christ, who has become very dear to me in the past years.

Harold understood the truth of eternity that his Catholic faith taught him. He understood that there is so much more than the headlines and so much of what we spend our time on every day. He understood that especially amid suffering, showing that the light of something greater than everything we see daily was the greatest gift we can give another.

“The courage and strength in me are clearly not of me but are of a power working in and through me,” Harold once reflected. “One experience in particular stands out for me today. On this day many years ago, I was rushed to the hospital. I lay unconscious due to a lack of oxygen. Thanks be to God, the paramedics arrived right on time. I found myself in the hospital, intubated with tubes going into my nose, receiving oxygen directly.” He wrote: “I really really don’t know how I could have gotten past the whole ordeal without God, without the power of Christ in me, without the Holy Spirit living and active in my life.”

This time of year can be reduced to Santa Claus and trees and whatever New Year’s traditions we observe. But it is about a radical vulnerability that Harold Gomes had no choice but to live. His choice was to live it with radiant love, with a generosity that insisted that Christianity is more than a pious story, but a love than transforms lives. It transformed his and the lives of his family.

I first met Harold because he reached out to me, wanting to communicate the Gospel in the world. He wanted to go on TV, to do anything to share God’s love for him with others. To say he was inspiring, as he was struggling to breathe, would clearly be an understatement.

Harold’s blood sister, Sister Grace Dominic, is a Sister of Life, dedicated to helping us see the value of human life. While I can’t believe he is gone — the grace of his life was a blessing in the D.C. area — the timing of his death can’t be a mistake. He was the vulnerable. He was a voice for them. We’re a mess right now politically and otherwise. Harold will advocate for us from a place more powerful than the nation’s capital. It is important not to canonize anyone prematurely. Pray for the repose of the soul of Harold Gomes as we enter a new year. At the same time, ask him for his supernatural advocacy. He was a “warrior” here for eternal good and will continue to be, reminding us that success in life is about love in the midst of our sufferings, more than anything else.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.