Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Grief

  • All Souls Remembrance Mass

    All Souls Remembrance Mass

    I’ve given the homily at remembrance Masses like this all through my priesthood, even when I was a newly-ordained priest.  The pastor I worked with them was terrible about grieving and he really didn’t like to talk about it.  During my time there, my father died, and he was pretty awful to me during that time.  I knew it was because he didn’t have the skills to enter into that with me, but it still hurt.  But I don’t think his issue was uncommon.  Grief is hard for all of us, some more so than others.

    Many of you know that this past year, back in January, my mother died.  We had been giving her pretty much 24/7 care for several months.  During that time, we did everything we could for her, because she always did everything she could for us.  It was a privilege for us to accompany her during that time; my sisters and I were, and always will be, grateful that we were able to be so close to her in her last days.

    But we miss her all the time.  My sister Sharon said that one day recently she woke up with a start from a dream where she heard Mom calling her name.  We were used to getting up in the night and caring for her, so she started to get up, only to remember that Mom was gone.  Peggy has told me a few times that there was something she had going on, and she wanted to tell Mom about it.  I can resonate with that, because I’ve had that experience too.  We would always call her and tell her good things and bad things.  I’d often ask her to pray for one of my parishioners who was sick or going through something hard, and prayer warrior that she was, she was on it.  We miss her sitting at her place on the couch and just hanging out with her.  I’m sure you know how that is.

    In the days and weeks and months since January, our family has gathered for dinners and other things as we often would.  It might be a birthday party where Mom would be smiling and enjoying the gathering.  But sometimes it was a simpler gathering.  One Sunday a while ago, we had our aunts and uncles over for Sunday dinner, and I cooked the Sunday gravy and pasta.  We had the best time just sitting and talking, and I couldn’t help but miss Mom who would have loved being part of that.

    These days, remembering is hard for all of us I think. As we come close to the first holidays without our loved ones, we will miss celebrating with them. There will be an empty place at the table, an extra Christmas stocking, nobody to help find the burnt out light bulb on the Christmas lights that keeps the whole string from working. We feel grief more intensely at the holidays, because the world is rejoicing, but we are hurting. I remember a time visiting a gift store in Glen Ellyn many years ago, just after one of my grandmothers died. It was all decked out for Christmas and looked so very homey. I was overcome with a wave of depression that socked me from out of nowhere. I had no idea what that was about, and I had to leave in a hurry. Later, I realized that it was about grieving my grandmother.

    And so I think it is the Church’s great wisdom that has us stop and celebrate All Souls Day before the holidays are upon us. Because we are a people who believe that there is hope in the midst of sorrow, joy in the midst of pain, resurrection that follows death, and love that survives the grave and leads us to the one who made us for himself. But there has to be something that gets us through all these hard times, and I think the Church gives us that something today.

    In the Liturgy, the words of hope that we find lead us back to the Cross and Resurrection. Death is not the end. Love does not come to an end at the grave. As the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer will tell us today: “Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.” Our loved ones who have been people of faith have been made new by passing through the gates of death. Their happiness is our hope; the grace and blessing that they now share will one day be ours.

    But I will acknowledge that even that glimmer of hope doesn’t erase all the pain. We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table. But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the blood of Christ. We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, in the kingdom that knows no end. The Eucharistic Prayer itself will tell us today that there will come a day when God “will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end…”

    Perhaps sometimes it feels like it would have been better not to have loved at all, because then maybe the pain wouldn’t be so great. We know that’s not true. Sadness and pain are temporary. Love is eternal. As the Church’s Vigil for the Deceased tells us, “all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.” We know that death only separates us for a short time, and even though there is a hole in our heart, the sadness that we feel is way better than never having loved at all, never having had our loved ones in our lives at all.

    The pain doesn’t just go away. There is no time when grief is “over.” I miss Mom and Dad in many ways, all the time. You miss your loved ones in exactly the same way. There are times when our grief overwhelms us, comes at us out of nowhere. But many are the times when our memories provide us healing and joy. Dad died when my nephew was very little.  He had a very close relationship with Dad, who he called “Boppy.” He often dreamed of Dad in those days, but after a few months, he said to his mom, my sister Peggy, “I’m sad because I didn’t dream of Boppy last night. I like to dream about Boppy.” Our dreams, our memories are gifts from our God who insists that we always know that we are loved. Sometimes it hurts, but ultimately it heals. Sadness is temporary. Love is eternal.

    And so we pray, Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  • The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

    The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

    One of the deep mysteries of the human experience lies in the realities of life and death. Everyone has, or will, experience the death of loved ones, sometimes after a long life, sometimes far too soon, always with feelings of sadness, regret, pain, grief and perhaps even anger or confusion.

    That’s how grief works. It might seem sometimes like it would have been better to live without love, but we know deep down that that’s not true. Sadness and even death are temporary; love is eternal. As the Church’s vigil for the deceased tells us, “all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.” We know that death only separates us for a short time, and even though there is that hole in our heart, the sadness that we feel is way better than never having loved at all, never having had our loved ones in our lives at all.

    Today, the Church gives us the grace of remembering, and praying for, all of our loved ones who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, and all the dead whose faith is known to God alone. The Church is great in wisdom in giving us this feast every year. Because even though on this day, we might shed a few tears, still we will have the grace of remembering the ones who have given us life, given us wisdom, those who have been Christ to us, those who have made God’s love tangibly present in our lives.

    Even if the memories aren’t the best, and even if we struggle with the pain of past hurts mixed with the sorrow of grief, there is grace in remembering today. Maybe this day can be an occasion of healing, even if it’s just a little bit. Maybe our tears, mixed with the saving Blood of Christ, can wash and purify our wounded hearts and sorrowful souls. And certainly our prayers are heard by our God who gives us healing and brings our loved ones closer to him, purifying them of any stain of sin gathered along the journey of life.

    That pain that perhaps we feel won’t all go away today. We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table, and that hole in our heart. But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the Blood of Christ. We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, with all of our hurts healed and relationships purified, in the kingdom that knows no end. The Eucharistic Prayer itself will tell us today that there will come a day when God “will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow in the world all that is good.”

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our departed loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  • Funeral Homily for My Mother, Julia Mulcahy

    Funeral Homily for My Mother, Julia Mulcahy

    In my funeral homilies for mothers, I have often reflected on how hard it is to lose a mother.  It turns out I was right!  From the very earliest moments of our existence and for many years, our mothers are our lifelines.  They provide food and sustenance first in the womb, then as we grow.  In the womb, our hearts beat together, and an amazing bond is formed.

    For my sisters and me, that bond was strengthened in these past few years, and especially in the last six or seven months as her illnesses progressed.  We all told her, and strongly believed, that it was our privilege to accompany her in her suffering, and to help relieve her as best we could.  We became the ones who provided food and sustenance – it’s a good thing she taught us all how to cook!  

    The collect prayer I chose for this morning evokes the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother.  I have often said over these few months that caring for Mom gave me a new appreciation, and a real love for, that commandment.  These months have certainly been difficult, but caring for Mom gave me a joy and a peace that I don’t think I would otherwise have had.  I think all three of us would say that.  That has been a blessing, and a consolation these past few months.

    “Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all.”  The writer of the Proverbs in our first reading puts words to a sentiment that we had for Mom, a devoted wife and mother, a grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.  Today, we have come together in grief, to remember her contributions to our lives, and to pray for her soul.  This reading says a great deal about who my mother was.  It speaks of a woman who was smart, shared her wisdom, and lived with dignity.  That was Mom.  Anytime we had a project, or a problem, she had an idea for how to do it.  One of the things I often remember her saying is, “There must be a better way.”  And if there was, she would sure find it.  

    Mom’s faith was central to who she was.  One of my very earliest memories was of Mom teaching me the guardian angel prayer.  That prayer has accompanied my own journey through life, and it was one that we prayed together every night in the last year or so of her life.  She was also very devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Rosary.  She was the one who taught me to pray it when I was young.  And I know so many of those beads have passed through her hands as she was praying for the three of us, and for her grandchildren, who were the light of her life in later years.  

    She and Dad lived their faith by being active in our parish growing up.  They were catechists in the high school program, and hosted a freshman class in their home for several years.  They also volunteered with the Saint Vincent DePaul Society, and delivered Christmas gifts to those in need for the parish.  They got us involved too, and being an active part of our parish was part of our family life.  My parents’ lived faith and my Mom’s fervent prayers certainly led me to the priesthood, and I’ll always be grateful for that.  I think Holy Mother Church owes a great deal to the mothers of many priests.

    “Love never fails,” says Saint Paul in our second reading.  One of the hallmarks of our family, always, was that we all knew how much we were loved.  We might disagree with each other on occasion, but we always sought the good of each other.  It was, indeed, a love that never failed.  It was a love that would have us lay down our lives for each other.  As Mom grew ill, the three of us met with her.  And the first thing she said to us was, “I know I’m a problem for you guys.”  We all said, no, Mom, you have a problem, you are not a problem.  And just like any of the problems our family has ever faced, we found a way to get through it.  The “better way” was love, and love wouldn’t have us do anything less for her than we did.  Love never fails to help us lay down our lives for each other.

    Probably for my whole priesthood, I dreaded this day, the day I would have to preach at my Mother’s funeral.  It’s hard to put into words what she meant to me, and to all of us, and it’s especially hard to do that without a tear in my eye.  But it is an absolute privilege to celebrate this funeral Mass for my Mother who had such a beautiful soul, and whose love inspired so many of the good things I have been able to do in my life.  We gather this morning with heavy hearts, because no matter how many years we’ve had, it’s never enough.  But we disciples never grieve without hope, because we know that the love that caused our Lord Jesus to lay down his life for us gives us the promise of being able to come together as family again, one day, in the house of our God.

    I find comfort in the words of this funeral Mass.  We are a people who steadfastly, courageously believe that there is hope in the midst of sorrow, joy in the midst of pain, resurrection that follows death, and love that survives the grave and leads us to the one who made us for himself.  The words of hope that we find in the prayers of this Mass lead us back to the Cross and Resurrection.  Death is not the end.  Love does not come to an end at the grave. 

    In a few moments, I will sing the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer.  I love the words of faith that it contains: “Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”  We believe that Mom, and all our loved ones who have been people of faith, have been made new by passing through the gates of death.  Their happiness is our hope; the grace and blessing that they now share can one day be ours, too.

    Mom gave us so many wonderful memories.  Her wonderful sense of humor, her recipe for Sunday Gravy, the many Thanksgivings where she had everyone over to the house and cooked a feast for an army, the unconditional love and the joy that she had whenever we were together, and so much more.  Sharon, Peggy, and I will miss being able to share a Facebook meme with her or tell her about what’s going on in our lives, there will be that empty place on the living room sofa.  But the faith and love that she taught us will keep her memory alive in our minds and hearts, and for that we can be grateful.  We give thanks that we had the most wonderful mother, and grandmother, and that we were able to serve her in her last days, as she served us throughout our lives.

    And so it is with profound sadness, but also with ultimate trust in Almighty God that we commend my mother, our sister Julie to the Lord, knowing that his mercy is great and that his love will keep us united at the Eucharistic banquet until that day when death is conquered and sadness is banished and we are all caught up in God’s life forever.

    On the night before Mom died, we prayed together as we always did.  We said the guardian angel prayer, and then I gave a blessing, using the antiphon from the Canticle of Night Prayer as I did every night:

    Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, rest in his peace. Rest in Christ’s peace, Mom, you deserve it. You fought so much illness in the last several years, peace is a blessing.

    And so we pray: Eternal rest grant unto our sister Julia, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

  • Remembrance Mass for All the Faithful Departed

    Remembrance Mass for All the Faithful Departed

    One of my early childhood memories, and my first memory, really, of grief, was the death of my grandfather, my mother’s father.  He had recently retired when he became ill, and it was found that he had cancer.  Back in the late 70s, cancer was even more of a death sentence than it is today, and he soon passed away.  I was nine years old at the time.  My memory is how I learned that he was dying.  One evening, my parents came to me in my room, and explained what was happening.  We talked about how unfair it was, and how we were going to miss him.  We cried, and hugged, and I knew that we would be going through the tough things together.  When he died, we all were at the wake and funeral, my first experience of those things.  It was important that I learned how to grieve, and that our family supported each other in that difficult time.  As difficult as it was, I am immensely grateful to my parents for having taught me to grieve.

    Grieving is a universal human experience.  How we grieve is not.  We will all lose people we love.  But, as our bereavement committee can certainly tell you, what we do with those pivotal human experiences varies so very much.  Some families go all in: the wake, funeral, taking the time to grieve, gathering the family, retelling the great stories.  Some families have trouble with this for many reasons.  Relationships may have been strained or there may have been family trauma.  But, these days, the reason is sometimes that people are unchurched or have not been taught how to grieve.  Many families have shielded young ones from the realities of death, and so they don’t know how to do when the reality of death draws them in.

    This is a larger problem than any of our families.  If there is one thing that we as a society do extremely poorly these days, it’s grieving. We rush through it and hope it’s all done before we have a chance to feel any kind of pain. That’s part and parcel of how things work in our world; we have a pill for every malady and a quick remedy for every pain, plagued with a whole host of horrifying side effects. And what’s important to know is that this is not how the Church teaches us to grieve. One of the most important reasons that we have All Souls Day each year is to give us the experience of remembering and grieving and healing. If you truly love, you will truly grieve, and not turn away from it.

    The Church’s Catechism (989) teaches us: “We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.” And so we Christians never grieve as if we have no hope. The Church’s Liturgy echoes this hope in the third Eucharistic Prayer: “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.” One of the Prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayers for the Dead makes it very clear that this hope touches our experience of grieving: “In him the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come (Preface I for the Dead).”

    So here is what I would want you to know about the process of grieving.  I hope you will find it helpful in those moments when grief makes it hard to think things through.

    First, don’t rush into the funeral. It’s hard to make all those difficult decisions at a moment’s notice. It’s great if you’ve talked about your wishes with your family, because it makes things easier. But if that hasn’t happened, the family would do well to take its time and avail itself of the resources of the funeral director and the church staff so that a funeral that adequately honors the deceased and comforts the living can be prepared.

    Second, let other people help you. Even if you can do all the preparations, you don’t have to. Let the Church and others help you and minister to you in your time of grief. As a priest, I presided at my father’s funeral, but one of the priests who knew him preached the homily. I found that was very helpful to me in my own grieving.

    Third, have a wake. A lot of people try to short-cut this one because they think it will be too painful. It will hurt a little, yes, but the comfort of others expressing their love for the deceased and for you will do so much to heal you in the time to come.

    Fourth, don’t be afraid to shed tears. Anyone who has ever seen me preach at some funerals of people I’ve known especially well has seen me get choked up. You’ve probably seen me shed a tear when I’ve talked about my father or my grandparents in a homily. Tears heal us, and it’s good for other people, especially your children, to see you cry. They need to know that pain and sorrow are part of life so that they don’t feel like they’ve gone nuts when it happens to them. You aren’t doing anyone any favors by not allowing them to see you grieve.

    Finally, understand that grief doesn’t “go away.” Feelings soften with time, yes, but you will grieve your loved ones for many years to come, perhaps your whole life long. I still grieve for my grandparents who have been gone from my life for many, many years now. Sometimes those waves of grief will come up all of a sudden, without warning, kind of out of the blue. And that’s okay. Remember grief is a sign that we have loved, and loving is the most important thing we will ever do.

    Brothers and sisters, I can’t say this strongly enough: if we don’t learn to grieve, as early as possible, we will never ever truly love. We won’t want to invest ourselves in love because we won’t want to ever feel pain.  Jesus loved the people in his life so strongly that the Gospel of John records him grieving for his friend Lazarus.  Didn’t Jesus know he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead?  Of course he did.  Didn’t Jesus know that Lazarus had the promise of eternal life?  He knew that better than anybody.  But Jesus also felt the pain of loss, and empathized with the pain of his friends who also felt that loss.  Jesus grieved, because he loves.  Jesus so deeply invested himself in love that he suffered the pain of the cross for us, so as to open for us the way to resurrection. We have to be willing to suffer loss in order to gain anything truly glorious.

    Even if the memories aren’t the best, and even if we struggle with the pain of past hurts mixed with the sorrow of grief, there is grace in grieving and remembering. Maybe this day can be an occasion of healing, even if it’s just a little bit. Maybe our tears, mixed with the saving Blood of Christ, can wash and purify our wounded hearts and sorrowful souls. And certainly our prayers are heard by our God who gives us healing and brings our loved ones closer to him, purifying them of any stain of sin gathered along the journey of life.

    That pain that perhaps we feel won’t all go away today. We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table, and that hole in our heart. But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the Blood of Christ. We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, with all of our hurts healed and relationships purified, in the kingdom that knows no end.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our departed loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  • Remembrance Mass for the Souls of All the Faithful Departed

    Remembrance Mass for the Souls of All the Faithful Departed

    Tonight, we have come together to do what the writer of the books of Maccabees insist is a holy and pious thing: to pray for the souls of the dead.  We have come together also to do what the Liturgy of the Rite of Christian Burial tells us to do: to pray also for ourselves.  We gather to care for our loved ones who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, and we gather to let our Lord care for us, we who have been touched by love and wounded by loss, that we might be graced by faith.

    I love what the third Eucharistic Prayer offers for Masses for the dead.  We’ll use it tonight, as I do for almost every funeral, but it’s nice sometimes to reflect on those words and let them enter into our prayer more fully.  I’m going to break it down and reflect on each section of it.  So the prayer begins: “Remember your servant … whom you have called from this world to yourself. Grant that he (she) who was united with your Son in a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection…”  Here the Church recognizes that our God does not leave us alone in death.  Death was never God’s will for the human person, rather death came as a remedy for sin, as Saint Paul reminds us so well.  Saint Ambrose writes that if death had not been introduced, living life in this broken world without end would have been an unbelievable, unbearable burden.  Death gives us the possibility of new life in the kingdom of God, with the freedom that he always intended for us.  Notice too, that in this prayer, the Church recognizes that our God, whose intent is always for our salvation, took on our lowly form and assumed all its defects, including the capacity to die.  And so of the many ways that we are united with our Lord, one of them is through death.  And we recognize that as death was not the end for him, so if we have faith and follow our Lord, it will not be the end for us either.

    The prayer continues: “…when from the earth he will raise up in the flesh those who have died, and transform our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious body.”  Just as we have been united in death with our Lord, so he intends that we would be united with him in resurrection.  Our Lord intends that the glory of the Resurrection of our Lord would open for us the way to the Kingdom of God, that Kingdom for which we were created in the first place, that Kingdom which is the destination of our life-long journey.  In resurrection, we will be transformed.  The weaknesses of our flesh will be redeemed, our woundedness will be bound up, our diseases will be healed, our sin will be wiped away, leaving nothing but the radiant glory of the very face of God.  Can you even imagine how wonderful that glory will be?  Holy Church teaches and insists that our bodies are not so profane nor so damaged that they can’t become glorious, by being united with our Lord in resurrection.

    We continue to pray: “To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance into your kingdom.”  Here the Church acknowledges that the dead depend on our prayers.  We implore the Lord to give admittance to the Kingdom to our loved ones.  We pray that their sins would be forgiven, that their weaknesses would be overlooked, that their relationships would be purified, that whatever was less than glorious in them might be made fit for the Kingdom of God.  The Church recognizes that most of our dead brothers and sisters continue their journey to the Kingdom after death.  They do it with different, more splendid graces than we have on this earth, they take it up with perhaps fewer distractions than those that divert our attention from the goal.  Whatever is not purified on earth can and must be purified by the gift of Purgatory, for those who have faith, and for those who need grace.

    Finally, the Church recognizes that we are all headed for the same goal, we and our loved ones who have died.  The prayer says: “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow in the world all that is good.”  The Kingdom is where all of our sadness is erased, and with eyes free from the tears of this life, we can finally see God as he is, and not as we would have him.  We can then be like him, caught up, really, in his life, one with him forever in Christ, receiving all that is good for all eternity.

    Our greatest work of charity is to pray that our deceased loved ones would receive all these graces, this wondrous and holy gifts, from our God, who deeply longs that each one of his children would return to be one with him.  In praying for them, the Church extends its ministry to all of us who mourn, enabling us to know the love of God in our time of grief and sadness.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life, all who believe in him will not die forever.  Death was never intended as our forever, as our final stop.  For to God, all are alive, just in different ways.  Praise God that he gives us life, and mercy, and grace, and resurrection.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

  • The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (Remembrance Mass)

    The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (Remembrance Mass)

    This weekend, we chose to celebrate All Souls at all of the parish Masses on Sunday (which is allowed) as part of our four-week series called “A Crash Course in Catholicism.”

    Today, we come together to remember our loved ones who have passed from this life to the hope of the kingdom.  As we continue to grieve their loss, we remember the promises our God has made to us and to them, and we pray that they will all receive the fullness of the fulfillment of those promises.  Here at Saint Mary’s, we are also observing the end of our four-week preaching series called “A Crash Course in Catholicism,” and this week’s topic is, very appropriately, “What happens when we die?”

    It’s a very important topic to conclude this four-week series, because it’s a topic that touches every single one of us at one point or another.  The loss of our loved ones, and our own mortality, are universal realities for every single person.  In death, we are united with our Lord, who himself “suffered death and was buried,” as we pray in the Creed at every Sunday Mass.  While death was not in God’s plan for us, the fullness of life in the Kingdom of Heaven certainly was.  Passing through the gates of death, we have the promise of life everlasting.  Jesus came to show us the way through all of that, so that we could be in the place where He and His Father intend to give us the fullness of glory.

    As wonderful as this world can be, it has its flaws – we all know that.  It is important that we keep in mind that the fullness of grace and blessing that God wants for us is not on this earth, but rather in the life to come, the glory of heaven, for which we were all created and toward which we must all be straining.  We are travelers in this place; we are only here for a time, and so our time here must be marked by travelling, moving forward, toward that heavenly glory.  This is a story that began at our baptism, continues through our life here on earth, and until we reach the goal of all our lives, our heavenly glory.

    There is no one in heaven who is not a saint.  That’s why it’s so important that we join ourselves to God in Christ, that we follow the Way our Lord marked out for us.  We must all become saints so that we can live forever with God.  We should want that for ourselves as much as we do for our departed loved ones.  Becoming a saint is our vocation in this world, that’s the ultimate meaning of life on this earth.  The saints in the Kingdom help us on this journey: their stories are examples for us and their prayers call God’s graces on our lives.  We Catholics don’t worship the saints; we worship God alone.  But we call on the saints for intercession, much as we might call on a friend or loved one to pray for us.  Those saints join us at Mass every time we celebrate it; we all lift up our voices in praise and prayer to God who is the focus of our worship.

    I love what the third Eucharistic Prayer offers for Masses for the dead.  We’ll use it this morning, as I do for almost every funeral, but it’s nice sometimes to reflect on those words and let them enter into our prayer more fully.  So the prayer goes: “Remember your servant N. whom you have called from this world to yourself. Grant that he (she) who was united with your Son in a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection…”  Here the Church recognizes that our God does not leave us alone in death.  Death was never God’s will for the human person, rather death came as a result of sin, as Saint Paul reminds us so well.  But in this prayer, the Church recognizes that our God, whose intent is always for our salvation, took on our lowly form and assumed all its defects, including the capacity to die.  And so of the many ways that we are united with our Lord, one of them is through death.  We certainly see death was not the end for him; so if we have faith and follow our Lord, it will not be the end for us either.

    The prayer continues: “…when from the earth he will raise up in the flesh those who have died, and transform our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious body.”  Just as we have been united in death with our Lord, so he intends that we would be united with him in resurrection.  Our Lord intends that the glory of the Resurrection of our Lord would open for us the way to the Kingdom of God, that Kingdom for which we were created in the first place, that Kingdom which is the destination of our life-long journey.  In resurrection, we will be transformed.  The weakness of our flesh will be redeemed, our woundedness will be bound up, our disease will be healed, our sin will be wiped away, leaving nothing but the radiant glory of the very face of God.  Our bodies are not so profane nor so damaged that they can’t become glorious, by being united with our Lord in resurrection.

    We continue to pray: “To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance into your kingdom.”  Here the Church acknowledges that the dead depend on our prayers.  We implore the Lord to give admittance to the Kingdom to our loved ones.  We pray that their sins would be forgiven, that their weaknesses would be overlooked, that their relationships would be purified, that whatever was less than glorious in them might be made fit for the Kingdom of God.  The Church recognizes that most of our dead brothers and sisters continue their journey to the Kingdom after death.  We call this reality “Purgatory,” and it is not a punishment so much as it is a gift: a gift of continued purification so that the soul can be made fit to live eternally with the Lord.  Our departed loved ones move in this journey with different, more splendid graces than we have on this earth, and they take it up with perhaps fewer distractions than those that divert our attention from the goal.  Whatever is not purified on earth can be purified by the gift of Purgatory, for those who have faith, and for those who need grace.

    Finally, the Church recognizes that we are all headed for the same goal, we and our loved ones who have died: “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow in the world all that is good.”  The Kingdom is where all of our sadness is erased, and with eyes free from the tears of this life, we can finally see God as he is, and not as we would have him.  We can then be like him, caught up, really, in his life, one with him forever in Christ, receiving all that is good for all eternity.

    Our greatest work of charity is to pray that our deceased loved ones would receive all these graces, these wondrous and holy gifts, from our God, who deeply longs that each one of his children would return to be one with him.  In praying for them, the Church extends its ministry to all of us who mourn, enabling us to know the love of God in our time of grief and sadness.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life, all who believe in him will not die forever.  Death was never intended as our forever, as our final stop.  For to God, all are alive, just in different ways.  Praise God that he gives us life, and mercy, and grace, and resurrection.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

  • The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls/Morning Mass)

    The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls/Morning Mass)

    One of the deep mysteries of the human experience lies in the realities of life and death. Everyone has, or will, experience the death of loved ones, sometimes after a long life, sometimes far too soon, always with feelings of sadness, regret, pain, grief and perhaps even anger or confusion.

    That’s how grief works. It might seem sometimes like it would have been better to live without love, but we know deep down that that’s not true. Sadness and even death are temporary; love is eternal. As the Church’s vigil for the deceased tells us, “all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.” We know that death only separates us for a short time, and even though there is that hole in our heart, the sadness that we feel is way better than never having loved at all, never having had our loved ones in our lives at all.

    Today, the Church gives us the grace of remembering, and praying for, all of our loved ones who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, and all the dead whose faith is known to God alone. The Church is great in wisdom in giving us this feast every year. Because even though on this day, we might shed a few tears, still we will have the grace of remembering the ones who have given us life, given us wisdom, those who have been Christ to us, those who have made God’s love tangibly present in our lives.

    Even if the memories aren’t the best, and even if we struggle with the pain of past hurts mixed with the sorrow of grief, there is grace in remembering today. Maybe this day can be an occasion of healing, even if it’s just a little bit. Maybe our tears, mixed with the saving Blood of Christ, can wash and purify our wounded hearts and sorrowful souls. And certainly our prayers are heard by our God who gives us healing and brings our loved ones closer to him, purifying them of any stain of sin gathered along the journey of life.

    That pain that perhaps we feel won’t all go away today. We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table, and that hole in our heart. But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the Blood of Christ. We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, with all of our hurts healed and relationships purified, in the kingdom that knows no end. The Eucharistic Prayer itself will tell us today that there will come a day when God “will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow in the world all that is good.”

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our departed loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  • Grieving During the Holidays

    Grieving During the Holidays

    Today, I was invited to give a talk at one of the local funeral homes for their clients who had lost loved ones during the last year.  I spoke about grieving during the holiday season.

    A reading from the book of Revelation (22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21).

    “Behold, I am coming soon. I bring with me the recompense I will give to each according to his deeds.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates.

    “I, Jesus, sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star.”  The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let the hearer say, “Come.” Let the one who thirsts come forward, and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.

    The one who gives this testimony says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

    Many years ago now, in the young adult period of my life, my grandmother on my father’s side passed away after a long and heartbreaking illness.  She was one of my best friends: we would sit and talk for hours about the “Old Country” and so many things.  After she died, I was in a local store around this time of year, and the store was all decked out in a homey, holiday theme.  I had gone in there just to see if I could find a gift for my mom, and I was in there maybe thirty second and found I couldn’t take it and rushed out and broke down and cried.  I was overcome by a sense of grief that came at me out of nowhere, and realized that I still had a long way to go in the grieving process.

    I’m glad to be here with you tonight, and I look forward to sharing about my own experience of grieving and to share some thoughts about how grief works.  But I do want to start out by saying that I may or may not have any idea how you feel.  Grief is a rather personal thing, by which I mean that each person experiences grieving in their own way.  It has to do with who they are grieving, what their relationship with that person was like, and how long it’s been since the loss of that person took place.  But I do want to be clear about the fact that we all grieve our loved ones – whether our relationship with them was good or bad, no matter how strong or weak we are emotionally otherwise, and no matter how long it’s been since their passing.  Grief is a common human experience, which is part and parcel of the life of loving.

    One of my deepest griefs came in the death of my father.  He has been gone ten years now, but it seems like I find a reason to miss him all the time.  Often on the anniversary of his death, I will gather with Mom, my sister Sharon, and my Aunt Eileen (dad’s sister), and sometimes my sister Peggy and the kids, to celebrate Mass and visit the cemetery to pray and lay some flowers, and then go out to eat.  That’s a pretty good picture of how grief works in our family, and always has.  We remember those we love, we pray, we visit the cemetery, and we celebrate them at some kind of meal, talking about them and remembering who they were for us.

    Several years ago, not long after he died, I took a road trip.  I packed up early on Sunday and was out of the house by 6am, and took a 3 hour and 45 minute drive to see a friend, one of my classmates from seminary, who was a priest in the diocese of Springfield.  I visited with him all of Sunday and on Monday morning, then packed up just before noon and returned home.

    I mention this because the trip itself was a bit unusual for me.  Usually, I’ll play the radio in the car the whole way down, but for most of the trip that time, I traveled in silence.  I did that because I was aware that I was missing my dad in a particular way.  I think I was missing him on this trip because Dad was great for road trips.  He’d get up before the crack of dawn, which is what I did, and he’d motor on toward whatever our destination was.  He loved to drive even long distances, and especially when I was a kid, the trip was kind of filled with expectation.  It wasn’t always fun getting up so early to leave, but it was kind of cool because it was a different experience, and as a kid, who could sleep the night before vacation anyway?

    So many wonderful things continue to remind me of Dad.  I was sitting on the deck at Mom’s house a couple of weeks ago.  We had intended Dad to sit out and enjoy the deck that summer, but he died just a few days before it could be completed.  He would have loved it; he always liked sitting outside and enjoying the neighborhood and his house.  So as I sat there on that deck and prayed my breviary, I found myself especially close to Dad.

    Whenever I was staying at Mom and Dad’s house overnight, and I’d get up in the morning to go shower, I would pass by his room and he would still be in bed. But he’d be awake, and would always say “good morning.” I miss those “good mornings” now.

    A year or so after the deck got built, Mom and I were out staining it. When we were getting started, I was searching the garage for some painting supplies. When I got frustrated and couldn’t find what I was looking for, I said “okay Dad, where did you put it?” And the next drawer I opened had all the things I needed, right where he left them. I couldn’t help but smile and say “thanks” because Dad was the only one who knew where anything was in that garage. Not that it was messy; it was very organized, but he alone knew the scheme!

    As I’ve experienced these things in the years since he died, I’ve been aware of my sense of loss that doesn’t ever seem to completely go away.  In some ways, that’s a good thing, because it reminds me how much I have loved and how much I was loved.  And through all of it, I have felt the abiding presence of God who is with us in all of our joys, and all of our sorrows.  I really feel like the danger of grieving is so miniscule compared with the danger of never having loved in our lives.

    I come at grief from a couple of perspectives.  I’m Irish on dad’s side and Italian on mom’s side.  So the hands down winner for grieving is the Italian side of me.  I have relatives who have been known to throw themselves on the casket at a cemetery service, and there is generally a lot of outward grieving going on.  The Irish side of me makes all the arrangements, does what needs to be done, then never speaks of it again.  That’s a generalization, of course, but there’s some truth to all of it.

    I had the opportunity to experience grieving at a fairly young age: I was just about nine years old.  Then my grandfather, Mom’s Dad, was close to death.  Mom and Dad talked with me about what was going to happen, and we all cried and hugged, and I began the strange feeling of grief when I was just nine years old.  When the time came, as is the custom on both sides of our family, all of us went to the wake and funeral, little as we were.

    Some people try to shield their children from that experience.  Indeed, our overly medicated society tries to protect us all from that experience of grief, white-washing it and moving on just as soon as possible.  But how grateful I am that my parents didn’t do that to me, because grieving is a healthy experience in life.  Through that experience, I learned to love more deeply, not less.  I learned that the people in my life are signs to me of God’s love and presence in my life.  I learned that grieving is part of life, that it’s natural, that it’s something we all experience, that it’s a sign of God’s love.  We have to learn to grieve, as soon as we have the opportunity, and not to be afraid of it, because grieving is a way that we remember and love and heal and grow.

    Sometimes for my yearly retreat, I will take it at Mundelein Seminary, where I went to school.  I will stay there, and spend some time reading and praying and recharging myself.  One of the things I always try to do every day when I am there is to take a walk around the grounds, which are really beautiful.  One day on my walk around the lake there, I came across an icon of Our Lady of Sorrows that had been recently erected.  It marked the spot where, in the fall of my last year in seminary, four of my brother seminarians were involved in a horrible, alcohol-related accident.  The two back-seat passengers were thrown from the car, and died.  The seminary isn’t like a big state university, it’s a small school of about 230 students, so you can imagine the impact on that small group of men.

    The day it happened was, ironically, or perhaps by design, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.  The priest who presided at Mass that day had written his homily the night before, and spoke of Our Lady’s experience of grieving the loss of her Son Jesus.  He never changed a word of it, and of course it resonated with all of us on that day in a way it couldn’t ever have resonated on any other day.  I’ve never seen a room full of hundreds of men in tears except on that day, and let me tell you, it was striking.

    The reason I bring this story up is that it is a good example to me of Christian grieving.  The icon was erected a year or so after I left the seminary, and I think it was a good way to remember Matty and Jared.  The community marked the spot where the horrible thing had taken place, consecrated the memory of those good men who had done something stupid to God who makes beauty out of the worst things possible, and commended the whole of it to the saints – in this case in the person of Our Lady of Sorrows.

    We believe in the Communion of Saints, which is that wonderful “cloud of witnesses” that we hear about in the Scriptures.  In the Letter to the Hebrews (12:1), we hear this: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us.”  This cloud of witnesses, this Communion of Saints consists of all the saints that we always know about: the men and women throughout history that have been formally and canonically recognized as saints.  We believe that these people are definitely in heaven, and have the power to intercede for us through their fervent prayers.

    The Communion of Saints also includes, however, those men and women who have never been formally recognized as saints.  They are our loved ones, good and holy people for the most part, who have helped us to see God in this life.  They too can intercede for us to God.  They may or may not be in heaven at this time, but are most likely headed there in any event.  They may still need to undergo the merciful purification that we call Purgatory for a time, but nonetheless, they have been on the whole witnesses of faith for us.

    So as I stood there looking at the image of Our Lady of Sorrows, I thought about the Saints, especially the Blessed Virgin, and I thought about the saints, including Matty and Jared, and I prayed for those “small-s” saints with the Memorare, a prayer that I remembered was one of Matty’s favorites:

    Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

     Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.

     Amen.

    The Church helps us through our grieving.  In the Liturgy, we pray what we believe.  And what we believe about grief is that it’s normal, that it’s part of life, that it’s a response to the gift of life that we have been given.  We are a people who believe that there is hope in the midst of sorrow, joy in the midst of pain, resurrection that follows death, and love that survives the grave and leads us to the one who made us for himself.

    In the Liturgy, the words of hope that we find lead us back to the Cross and Resurrection. Death is not the end. Love does not come to an end at the grave.  Our loved ones who have been people of faith have been made new by passing through the gates of death. Their happiness is our hope; the grace and blessing that they now share will one day be ours.

    But I will acknowledge that even that glimmer of hope doesn’t erase all the pain. We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table. But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the blood of Christ. We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, in the kingdom that knows no end.

    Perhaps sometimes it feels like it would have been better not to have loved at all, because then maybe the pain wouldn’t be so great.  But deep down in our hearts, we have to know that’s not true.  Sadness and pain are temporary.  Love is eternal.  As the Church’s Vigil for the Deceased tells us, “all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.”  We know that death only separates us for a short time, and even though there is a hole in our heart, the sadness that we feel is way better than never having loved at all, never having had our loved ones in our lives at all.

    Grief and loss can do a number of things to us, and that is what makes it so scary.  Some people can become fixated in their grief and can be taken by a kind of clinical depression.  For that, we must count on the expert assistance of counselors and therapists who can help us through the root causes of depression and help us to experience our grief in healthier ways.  But that doesn’t mean that everyone who experiences loss should be medicated or is even ill.  If you’re moving through grief and continue to be aware of the gifts of your relationship with those you have lost, and continue to know that God is present with you even in your pain, then you’re probably grieving in healthy ways.  But if you’re lost and have lost sight of God’s love, then you might need to speak with someone about your grief.

    Jesus said in the Beatitudes “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  What makes this a particularly outrageous statement is that in biblical language, the word “blessed” here means “happy.”  So how is it that mourners are actually happy?  And the answer to that is that mourners have the wonderful experience of God’s presence in their grief.  When we grieve, we are especially close to God, close to our God who grieves when we are hurt, who may allow the bad things that happen in our lives, but never wills them, whose heart breaks whenever we sin and turn away from him.  We are made in the image and likeness of our God who is no stranger to grief, especially in the person of Jesus Christ, who grieved at the death of his friend Lazarus, who grieved with those he ministered to, and whose heart was broken when he saw the sadness of his mother at the foot of the cross.  Our God accepts grief head-on, and so should we, aware that in our grieving we are closer to God than ever, and have the benefit of his abiding presence in our pain.

    The pain doesn’t just go away. There is no time when grief is “over.” I miss Dad in many ways, all the time. I miss my grandparents, and an aunt and uncle who have gone to their rest.  You miss your loved ones in much the same way. There are times when our grief overwhelms us, comes at us out of nowhere. But many are the times when our memories provide us healing and joy.

    Especially as we prepare for Christmas, we mourn perhaps more intensely.  It’s hard to be joyful, to see the joy of the world around us, when we are still grieving.  It’s hard to acknowledge that for others, life just goes on.  Although, I have to say that a lot of the so-called happy people out there might just have a happy face pasted on them, because grief is so universal, and almost universally done poorly!  But Advent reminds us that there is hope. This is a reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah (25:6-9):

    On this mountain the LORD of hosts
    will provide for all peoples
    A feast of rich food and choice wines,
    juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.

    On this mountain he will destroy
    the veil that veils all peoples,
    The web that is woven over all nations.

    He will destroy death forever.

    The Lord GOD will wipe away
    the tears from all faces;
    The reproach of his people he will remove
    from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.
    On that day it will be said:
    “Indeed, this is our God; we looked to him, and he saved us!
    This is the LORD to whom we looked;
    let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”

    Advent reminds us God didn’t give up on a world steeped in sin and ruled by death.  Instead, he burst into our time and place with life: taking our lowly and flawed human flesh, and redeeming it, making it holy, that we would be saved and God would be glorified.  For those of us who mourn during the holiday season, the promise of Advent tells us that sadness isn’t our enduring reality, that love conquers everything, and that God has life in mind for all of us, in that kingdom where we all hope to arrive at life eternal.  That’s a hope that is so much stronger than any sadness we may experience.

    When he was little, my nephew had a very close relationship with Dad, who he called “Boppy.”  In the days after Dad’s death, Danny often dreamed of Dad and said to his mom, my sister, a year or so after Dad’s death, “I’m sad because I didn’t dream of Boppy last night. I like to dream about Boppy.” Our dreams, our memories are gifts from our God who insists that we always know that we are loved. Sometimes it hurts, but ultimately it heals. Sadness is temporary. Love is eternal.

  • All Souls Remembrance Mass

    All Souls Remembrance Mass

    The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
    and no torment shall touch them.

    Each year, the Church gives us the grace of remembering, and praying for, all of our loved ones who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, and all the dead whose faith is known to God alone.  The Church is great in wisdom in giving us this feast every year.  Because even though on this day, we might shed a few tears, still we will have the grace of remembering the ones who have given us life, given us wisdom, those who have been Christ to us, those who have made God’s love tangibly present in our lives.

    Perhaps the deepest mystery of the human experience lies in the reality of life and death.  Everyone has, or will, experience the death of loved ones, sometimes after a long life, sometimes far too soon, always with feelings of sadness, regret, pain, grief and perhaps even anger or confusion.

    That’s how grief works.  It might seem sometimes like it would have been better to live without love, but we know deep down that that’s not true.  Sadness and even death are temporary; love is eternal.  As the Church’s vigil for the deceased tells us, “all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.”  We know that death only separates us for a short time, and even though there is that hole in our heart, the sadness that we feel is way better than never having loved at all, never having had our loved ones in our lives at all.

    I want to pause here and speak a little about the reality of grief.  Because, if there is one thing that we as a society do extremely poorly these days, it’s grieving.  We rush through it and hope it’s all done before we have a chance to feel any kind of pain.  That’s part and parcel of how things work in our world; we have a pill for every malady and a quick remedy for every pain, plagued with a whole host of horrifying side effects.  And what’s important to know is that this is not how the Church teaches us to grieve.  One of the most important reasons that we have All Souls Day each year is to give us the experience of remembering and grieving and healing.  If you truly love, you will truly grieve, and not turn away from it.

    The Church’s Catechism (989) teaches us: “We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.”  And so we Christians never grieve as if we have no hope.  The Church’s Liturgy echoes this hope in the third Eucharistic Prayer: “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.”  One of the Prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayers for the Dead makes it very clear that this hope touches our experience of grieving: “In him the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come (Preface I for the Dead).”

    And so I have some tips on grieving that I hope you will find helpful:

    1. Don’t rush into the funeral. It’s hard to make all those difficult decisions at a moment’s notice.  It’s great if you’ve talked about your wishes with your family, because it makes things easier.  But if that hasn’t happened, the family would do well to take its time and avail itself of the resources of the funeral director and the church staff so that a funeral that adequately honors the deceased and comforts the living can be prepared.
    2. Parents: please talk to your children about your funeral. Yes, that’s going to be a hard conversation.  But these days, too many young people are so disconnected from the Church and so averse to any kind of unhappiness, that they really don’t know how to grieve.  You have to help them with that.
    3. Let other people help you. Even if you can do all the preparations, you don’t have to.  Let the Church and others help you and minister to you in your time of grief.  As a priest, I presided at my father’s funeral, but one of the priests who knew him preached the homily.  I found that was very helpful to me in my own grieving.  On that day, I was a son grieving the death of his father; it would have been hard to be the preacher too.
    4. Have a wake. A lot of people try to short-cut this one because they think it will be too painful.  It will hurt a little, yes, but the comfort of others expressing their love for the deceased and for you will do so much to heal you in the time to come.
    5. Don’t be afraid to shed tears. Anyone who has ever seen me preach at some funerals of people I’ve known especially well has seen me get choked up.  Or they have seen me shed a tear when I’ve talked about my father or my grandparents in a homily.  Tears heal us, and it’s good for other people, especially your children, to see you cry.  They need to know that pain and sorrow are part of life so that they don’t feel like they’ve gone nuts when it happens to them.  You aren’t doing anyone any favors by not allowing them to see you grieve.
    6. Understand that grief doesn’t “go away.” Feelings soften with time, yes, but you will grieve your loved ones for many years to come, perhaps your whole life long.  I still grieve for my grandparents who have been gone from my life for many, many years now.  Sometimes those waves of grief will come up all of a sudden, without warning, kind of out of the blue.  And that’s okay.  Remember grief is a sign that we have loved, and loving is the most important thing we will ever do.

    One of my most vivid childhood memories was when I was just about nine years old.  My grandfather on my mother’s side, who had retired just a few months earlier, was diagnosed with cancer.  There wasn’t so much that could be done about cancer in those days, so he wasn’t expected to live long.  And so one night, as the oldest of the children, Mom and Dad came to my room to talk to me about Grandpa.  That was the night I learned about life and death, sadness and grief, love and pain.  We cried a bunch, hugged a lot, and talked about how we were going to miss him.

    I went to the wake and funeral with my family, because that’s what we did when a loved one died.  My parents could have shielded me from that experience in many ways, as so many parents do, but they chose not to, and I’m glad they made that decision.  Death and grief aren’t things we actively seek, but we can’t be afraid to meet them head on, girded with faith, and confident of the hope we have in Christ Jesus.

    Brothers and sisters, I can’t say this strongly enough: if we don’t learn to grieve, as early as possible, we will never ever truly love.  We won’t want to invest ourselves in love because we won’t want to ever feel pain.  Jesus so deeply invested himself in love that he suffered the pain of the cross for us, so as to open for us the way to resurrection.  We have to be willing to suffer loss in order to gain anything truly glorious.

    Even if the memories aren’t the best, and even if we struggle with the pain of past hurts mixed with the sorrow of grief, there is grace in grieving and remembering.  Maybe this day can be an occasion of healing, even if it’s just a little bit.  Maybe our tears, mixed with the saving Blood of Christ, can wash and purify our wounded hearts and sorrowful souls.  And certainly our prayers are heard by our God who gives us healing and brings our loved ones closer to him, purifying them of any stain of sin gathered along the journey of life.

    That pain that perhaps we feel won’t all go away today.  We are left with tears and loneliness, and that empty place at the table, and that hole in our heart.  But sadness and pain absolutely do not last forever, because death and sin have been ultimately defeated by the Blood of Christ.  We can hope in the day that our hearts will be healed, and we will be reunited with our loved ones forever, with all of our hurts healed and relationships purified, in the kingdom that knows no end.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our departed loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

  • The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

    The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

    One of my most vivid childhood memories was when I was just about nine years old.  My grandfather on my mother’s side, who had retired just a few months earlier, was diagnosed with cancer.  There wasn’t so much that could be done about cancer in those days, so he wasn’t expected to live long.  And so one night, as the oldest of the children, Mom and Dad came to my room to talk to me about Grandpa.  That was the night I learned about life and death, sadness and grief, love and pain.  We cried a bunch, hugged a lot, and talked about how we were going to miss Grandpa.

    I went to the wake and funeral with my family, because that’s what we did when a loved one died.  My parents could have shielded me from that experience in many ways, but they chose not to, and I’m glad they made that decision.  Death and grief aren’t things we actively seek, but we can’t be afraid to meet them head on, girded with faith, and confident of the hope we have in Christ Jesus.

    I still miss Grandpa to this very day.  He had a wonderfully silly sense of humor that never failed to make me laugh, he made a homemade ravioli that blew away anything I’ve ever eaten since, he came from Italy, learned our language and made a beautiful life for his family, and the stories of that have been an inspiration to me every day.  The same is true of all of my grandparents, all who have gone on to the Kingdom, all of whom I miss and all of whom were a great example for me.

    I miss Grandma Mulcahy when I’m planting flowers in my Mom’s garden, because she did that better than anyone, and while she did, we would talk about Ireland and I would hear about life in the “Old Country.”  I miss Grandma Mastrodonato – Mom’s Mom – when I’m out in a public setting and see people doing crazy things or wearing something odd, because she always enjoyed people watching and listening to others.  I missed Dad’s Dad a lot in my job previous to seminary, because he built the monstrous printing press that was, at the time, printing a job for my customer.

    And I miss Dad.  When I’m having a rough day, I just want to sit down and talk, knowing he’d listen and understand, and support me in whatever way I needed.  I missed him especially a couple of months ago when I celebrated the funeral of his best friend, one of the pillars of our neighborhood.  Together, they were two of the best, most giving men I ever knew.

    And there are aunts and uncles who have gone on to the Lord, too.  All of these characters have been inspirational to me in some way, and I find that the grieving, while it may dissipate a bit, never seems to completely go away.  I don’t think it’s supposed to.  Because when we have loved much, the passing away of one we have loved leaves a hole in our life that shouldn’t go away.  That doesn’t mean that our life comes to an end: we move on, as move on we must, but always with a sense of loss, hopefully tempered with fondness for the relationship we had, hopeful of a reunion in heaven one day.

    “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.”  So says the author of the book of Wisdom.  That is our prayer for our loved ones, for all the faithful departed.  Because, if we are convinced of that grace, we know they are alright, and have hope that we will be alright too.  And our Liturgy gives us words to hope on as well.  In a few moments, I will sing the words that have comforted me so many times in my sorrow: “Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”  That is the promise derived from Jesus’ words in the Gospel: “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live…”

    On this feast of the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, I have chosen to reflect on our experience of grief, and I’ve done that because it’s an experience we all have, on some level, at some time in our lives.  I want you to know how very natural grief is, and how very blessed an experience it is.

    Death is always a time of great sadness, but our Liturgy teaches us that we who believe in the Lord Jesus must never grieve as if we have no hope.  Our hope is always in Christ, the one who knows our grief and pain, and is with us in every moment of our lives, most especially when we are in pain.  The Church teaches us that if we believe in God and do his will, we can be reunited with all of our loved ones forever one day.  For the believer, the hopelessness of death is always overcome by the great hope of God’s grace.

    And so we know that death only separates us from those we love for a short time, and that death never has the last word because Christ has triumphed over death.  The beginning and end of everything is Christ, and Christ is with us in our first moments, and also in our last.  He is with us in our pain and with us in our joy.  He helps us to remember our loved ones with love that continues beyond our death and beyond the grave.  Grief and loss and pain are temporary things for us.  Love is eternal, love never ends, love can never be destroyed by death, love leads us all to the great glory of the resurrection and eternal light in that kingdom where Christ has conquered everything, even death itself.

    Eternal rest grant unto all of our loved ones, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.  May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.