Greetings in Christ, all! It was just a few years ago last Thursday that my Mom went to be with the Lord. Of course I am biased, but I think she was extraordinary. I worked for a while on a couple different ideas to share her with you, but in the end, it hit me that perhaps the best idea is to give you some parts of the homily I shared for her funeral.
I ask her to pray for us at St. Mark and Holy Family every day and I want you to know about the woman I believe is praying for us. So, without further ado, here are some portions of the homily I gave at my Mom’s funeral.
She saw the Lord in it all…not just the beautiful baby giggling, but in the horrors and crucifixions of being a broken person in a broken world. I can’t tell you what that meant and means to me to be loved and raised by a woman who saw the Lord in everything.
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Mom loved Jesus. With every cell in her body, she loved God. Because of that, she loved us all with an intensity that is impossible to describe.
Her sincere conviction that God loved her put a steel in her heart that was absolutely, positively unbreakable. Because God loved her so deeply and because she loved Him back, she could weather any storm of gossip, hateful comments, neglect, trials or tribulations. In the words of Proverbs 31, she laughed at the days to come.
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We, as a family were with her at the end and no kidding, Mom didn’t just die, Mom was finished. Right after she took her last breath as we were looking at her tired, worn out body, my sister Laure pointed out it was perfect: Mom had used up every cell in her body. For 77 years Mom grabbed every moment that God offered her in life and she seized it: she laughed like no one else, she cried with intensity and a depth that would break your heart. She sang with gusto, she prayed with fire, she worked like a crazy woman and hugged you as if the world was ending. She traveled the world and gazed on wonder after wonder, meeting people and transforming them on every populated continent…I can’t tell you what it was like to live with and around such a person. It’s hard not to give her resume.
It’s hard not to tell you the extraordinary things she accomplished: Every joy, every pain, every experience God threw at Mom…but that’s not her. Her love for God and her trust in God’s love for her is what is important and the best thing about her.
In the last days, I would hold her hand and whisper to her over and over saying “I am filled with gratitude for you.” I was and I am. She Shined.
God bless you and thank you for letting me serve as your priest!
fjk
