Thursday, March 23, 2017

Joyous Mourning



Funeral Mass for Marilou Roos - March 20, 2017

Readings:  Wis 3:1-6, 9          Rom 15:20-23, 24b-28          Jn 14:1-6

Joyous Mourning

We gather together today in mourning, and rightly so.  In a general sense, we mourn the fragile and temporary nature of our life here on earth.  We mourn our inability to guard and protect ourselves from tragedy and loss.  Most especially, we mourn the loss of someone who was dearly precious to us - a mother, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a hostess extraordinaire, one who always laughed at even our lamest jokes, one who was always proud of even our smallest accomplishments, our little leprechaun, Marilou.

And yet, in the depth of our mourning, we also come together in faith.  Some say that there 365 times, one time for every day in the year, when we hear in the Bible to not fear, to not be afraid.  Actually, it is only about 140 times, but that’s still a lot.  A similar number of times, the Bible insists that we should be filled with joy, rejoicing always.  That makes sense since fear and joy are opposed to each other.  If you are filled with fear, you cannot feel joy, and joy drives out fear.  But how do we reconcile these imperatives with our sense of mourning that we feel today?

As a start, we need recognize the source of our fears.  Much of our fear comes from two sources; one, that we will lose something which we already have, and two, that we will not get something that we dearly want.  Perhaps our biggest fear is that we lose the love of those near to us, coupled with the fear that we will die before our time, which, of course, we would like to think will never come.

But St. Paul tells us that we have a love that can never be lost, for nothing – no matter what do, no matter who we’re with, no matter how far we wander, even death itself – nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.  And this love transcends anything we can imagine.  For the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who is love itself, has created each of us in His own image, desires each of us, as He desires all his creation to be one with him, and loves us so much that He took on our very humanity to show us the path to this oneness with God.

The master of the universe became a slave to all, God became human.  He did not do this as a reward for our goodness.  He did not do this even because we asked or somehow deserved it.  There were no preconditions, simply love, infinitely great, infinitely robust, unconditional love.

He experienced and shared our joys and our triumphs.  He experienced and shared our sorrows and our losses.  And, on a cross, he experienced that which we will all experience, something which it only seems natural for us fear mightily, he experienced death itself.  But that was not to be the end.

For by taking on our life and taking on our death, he showed us the way past death. He conquered death.  He rose from the dead to show us that God’s love is not only infinite, not only unconditional, but eternal and ever-lasting.  Even death itself is not a condition which can end God’s great love for us. 

In faith, we realize that our mourning is not for Marilou, but for our loss of her immediate presence.  We realize that we tend to look at life narrowly – or perhaps, not narrowly, but certainly not biblically – for God has gifted us eternal life.  Our destiny is to live either eternally in union with God – we call that heaven – or eternally without God – we call that hell.  Either way, we’re in for the long haul.  Hence, the writer of Wisdom tells us that while the just may seem, to the eyes of the foolish, to be dead, and their passing to be an affliction, they are in the hand of God, they are in peace.
 
Some relatively short, but extremely critical, portion of that gift of eternal life is time that God has granted us to spend here on earth.  During this time, we learn from Jesus how to live as one with God.  We learn how to recognize the oneness that God calls us to live with all of creation.    By living this oneness with God and with neighbor here on earth, we prepare ourselves to accept oneness with God for all eternity.  And our joy is in the hope that we will live in this oneness forever.

Jesus describes this hope to his disciples when he tells that in his Father’s house, there are many dwelling places, which Jesus has gone to prepare for us.  For me, my hope is that in my eternal dwelling place, my mom is in charge of the kitchen.

Despite our present mourning, we are free from fear of loss, for we have a great and abiding love which we cannot lose.  We are filled with joy at the sure and certain hope that we might live with God forever, the source of all love, all peace, and all joy.


We pray today that God will speed Marilou to her everlasting place with him, that she soon hears these words for a final time, the words which we try to keep in our hearts every day of our lives, the words with which the angels greeted the shepherds at the birth of Christ – Be not afraid, for I bring you tidings of great joy.