HOMILY
Mass of Remembrance – July 25, 2024
Isaiah 25:6a, 7-9; 2 Corinthians 1:1-7; John 14:1-6
A few years ago, I visited a local parish church to pay my respects to a woman whom I had known for many years. Her son’s funeral mass was to be celebrated later that morning. He died quite unexpectedly in his 40’s. Sadly, this woman also buried her husband, her parents and her only other son at a young age as well. For all the time that has passed since that experience, I have never forgotten that encounter with my friend.
When I embraced her in the receiving line in the church, I was keenly aware of her loss and the inadequacy of any words that I might have been able to offer at that moment. She, however, in her grief and pain, shared words that have stayed with me for many years. “God has taken back everything that he gave me. … But how can I ever be mad at God? … He’s carried me for all these years and has never let me down.”
Amazing words, aren’t they? … I don’t know if I could have ever uttered such words in the face of so much suffering, pain and loss and really mean them? … I’d like to believe that I could, but I’m sure. I know from what I’ve experienced myself and from opportunities to speak with so many of you, that anyone of us could just as easily yield to anger with God – to disillusionment – to bitterness – and to a whole host of feelings and emotions over which we have little control; feelings and emotions that understandably can easily consume our lives in the face of loss and grief – and particularly the stories that so many of you bring to our cathedral and to this time of prayer.
While life goes on, so many of us get stalled in a quagmire of suffering and pain that emerges against our will and that we are forced to endure as a result of circumstances that we never wanted to experience in the first place.
And yet, we’re here tonight for this time of prayer and remembrance, searching and hoping to find some sense of peace that might enable us to affirm what my dear friend was able to share in a moment of grief and loss. The question is, how does someone like my friend – and like many of you or any of us – make such an affirmation of faith and hope?
I’d suggest that it all depends upon where we look to find our peace and how we understand God’s plan of salvation and his place within our lives. So many of you know better than most that life simply does not unfold in the ways in which we’d expect or imagine. While there are joyful and meaningful moments in all of our lives, there are far more crosses looking for shoulders to rest upon than we’d like to admit. Yet, if we are humble and wise enough to probe just a bit into the mystery of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, we’ll discover a pathway to hope and peace, regardless of how life unfolds around us.
Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we confront two great realities within our lives. We confront the brokenness of the human condition in the suffering of Jesus that led him to the cross. But we also confront the immeasurable mercy and love of God so evident in the Jesus’ resurrection. … These two great realities create a bit of tension, don’t they, particularly for us who gather for this annual Mass of Remembrance,? The tension that I refer to is rooted in the struggle that we confront as we seek to balance the reality of grief, loss, and death, on one hand, and the hope that our faith promises.
We are all here today because we have faced the worst that life can offer. But we are also here today because we believe, however feebly, that God somehow can and does speak to the brokenness of our lives and gives us a way forward with a certain sense of hope and even, at times, a peace that we can neither explain nor justify in the face of our loss.
The scripture passages proclaimed this evening, each in their own way, speak powerfully to our lives. Isaiah speaks of the promise of the Lord to “destroy death forever” and to “wipe away the tears from all faces.” Jesus, in the gospel passage from Saint John promises to all believers the gift of his peace – so “do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”
But it is Saint Paul’s’ message from his Second Letter to the Corinthians that speaks most clearly to the reality of this time of prayer. Paul is able to offer consolation to the Corinthians because of the very consolation he receives from God amid his own struggles and pain. … Notice, however, that while the comfort comes from God and reaches the apostle, it then goes from the apostle to those Christians, who in their own distress, are in need of consolation. … Essentially, Paul reminds all of us that it is indeed right for us to long for God’s consolation. But when consolation is granted to us, there is an expectation and a reciprocity that we are called to embrace. We who experience God’s consolation, in turn, are called to share such consolation, healing and comfort to others.
Isn’t it so often the case that those people who touch us the most in our suffering and grief are more often than not individuals who have experienced significant loss in their own lives. … They are so often people who have received the consolation of the Lord in their own journeys of life and who have chosen not to wallow in self-pity but to share the consolation that they have received with others. … They are people who allow themselves to be instruments of the Lord’s peace, even as they struggle to find it more fully within their own hearts. … They are people who understand the words of Saint Paul: those who have received the Lord’s consolation, in turn, encourage those who are afflicted.
Some time ago, Pope Francis spoke to this reality when he addressed families who had experienced loss not unlike those of us who gather for this annual Mass. “Among the People of God, with the grace of compassion given by Jesus, many families demonstrate that death does not have the last word. … Every time that a family in mourning finds the strength to love, … the darkness of death is confronted with a more intense work of God’s love. … If we let ourselves be sustained by faith, the experience of bereavement can generate a stronger … openness to the sorrow of other families and a new fraternity with families … reborn in hope.”
We all bring sadness and pain to this moment. And yet, amid suffering and grief, we have hope through the blessings of our faith, don’t we? … We have hope through the supportive presence of countless numbers of individuals whom God has given to us and whom we, in turn, are privileged to serve in and through our own grief. … We have hope through the blessing of our faith which, even when questioned in times of struggle, provides us with the pathway to God’s loving presence. … And we have hope because of Jesus and the power of his suffering, death and resurrection, through which we keep alive all those relationships with loved ones who have passed from this world to the next.