In celebration of ...

This morning, we celebrated the life of a woman who appeared from the outside to shun the limelight and to cling to the shadows, but a woman who nonetheless was filled with the light of faith.

Funeral homily for Bernice Leblond

Dear brothers and sisters, we have gathered today around the table of the Lord.  Here in this place, Jesus is our host.  He is the one who has invited us once again to assemble in prayer and in faith to remember all that Bernice has shared with us in this life and to peer beyond the veil that separates mortals from heaven to glimpse the place where she is now, united at last with her beloved Issy in the heavenly homeland that awaits us all.

There was a period of about six months or so, back in latter part of 2005 and the early part of 2006 when I would travel each week from Sudbury to North Bay to celebrate the weekend Masses at Saint Rita’s church.  It was during this time that I met Isadore Sr. and Bernice, and many of the other people who called that place of prayer their spiritual home.  Those visits were frequent but brief, yet it was as though we had begun to know one another, just a bit.  Thank you Maurice for explaining some more of the details.

What Bernice tried to do in this life was what we all must try to do.  Each one of us has been welcomed into the family of God, like she was welcomed into the Leblond family.  The image of her being taken aback the first time she witnessed so much music, singing and dancing in celebration of ... nothing is I think the way some people are surprised when they are welcomed into the family of faith.  There’s a tendency today to think that we all live in our own worlds – focused more on computer screens and tied to the electronic gadgets that we carry around, but if were to put them away for a while and look up at the rest of the world, we might be surprised to find that we are part of a very large family that gathers, sings and dances quite often in celebration of what appears to be nothing.  The truth is that we celebrate everything: the promise that is made to each one of us on the day of our baptism – you are a precious child of God, part of a family that loves you deeply.

Like every large family, we learn from the experience of living in our faith family that we do not live to ourselves.  That is to say that none of us lives in our own worlds, isolated or cut off from others.  In fact, Christ died and rose again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living (Rom 14:9).  This family of ours is immense.  It includes all those who have been part of our lives here in earth: those who have taught us about Jesus, about our Father, about Mary our Mother ... and it includes all the saints as well: those who tried during their earthly lives to be examples of faith for us and those who now pray with us and for us in heaven.

When Bernice was learning about the Catholic faith, I wonder how often she and Father Dennis Murphy – he’s a Monsignor now, you know – spoke about the beatitudes: the attitudes that we must take on in order to become more and more like Jesus.  Blessed are the poor in spirit ... blessed are those who mourn ... blessed are the meek ... blessed are the merciful ... blessed are the peacemakers (cf Mt 5:3-9).  Bernice took those sessions seriously.  Throughout the rest of her life, she tried to practice them in the way she lived her life.  She tried to share these lessons with all of you, and this is the reason why we always found in her a compassionate spirit who would speak out in the name of justice, and one who would find such joy in the simple pleasure of cuddling with a newborn child.

If the Beatitudes are the recipe for living a life of faith, the proof of our success at living the life of a disciple will be discovered only on the day when each of us stands before the gates of heaven.  On that day, Jesus tells us, the Son of Man will sit on his throne of glory and all the nations will be gathered before him (Mt 25:31-32).

Bernice might be surprised to hear him say to her: Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Mt 25:34).  You see, for those who have tried all their lives to live generously and to love sincerely, quite often, there is no question about recompense for being good to others.  People like Bernice don’t even want to be seen or heard.  They just do what they do: they feed the hungry, they quench the thirst of those who are need, they welcome strangers, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, the elderly, the housebound (Mt 25:35-36) ... and joyfully care for their needs. 

These are the lessons we learn as we gather each week with our family of faith around the Lord’s table.  A newcomer to this family gathering will quite possibly be taken aback to see the way we sing joyfully even in times of mourning, or to hear us speak with faith about life even in the midst of suffering and death, but if we take the time to welcome these onlookers, to make a place for them at our table, they will in turn come to see that although it might seem that we are celebrating no special occasion at all, the truth is that every time we gather, we are filled with joy because the secret to our joy is the faith we share, the person of Jesus who unites us and the promise of eternal life in his presence that we look forward to.