For the second time this week, I was asked to preside at a funeral Mass. This time, the location was the parish where I had spent ten months living a pastoral internship while I was still a seminarian. That 'first' parish is still special in my memory, and many of the people who still gather there today are fixtures among the fabric of that particular parish. One of them died this week after a very short battle with brain cancer. Here is the text of the homily pronounced today at the funeral Mass we celebrated for her.
HOMILY FOR THE FUNERAL OF NORMA HUMPHREY
Church of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Sudbury
Saturday, April 14, 2012
It was almost twenty-two years ago now when I received a phone call from Bishop Plouffe, telling me that he had assigned me to do a pastoral internship year at the parish of Saint Andrew the Apostle in Sudbury. It’s a very vibrant community, he said, you’ll have lots of opportunities to gain pastoral experience, and the people are pretty special too.
I still remember the first day that I entered the church. I had only just arrived, and knew absolutely no-one, but even then, from one of the pews toward the back of the church (as all good Catholics do), somewhere on the left-hand side of the church (or is that the right-hand side? I can never figure that out), I remember uttering a silent prayer: Dear God, help me to love the people of this community. Help me to serve them as you would serve them. Help me to be attentive to the lessons they will teach me in the coming months.
On that day, I was a stranger to this community, but it wasn’t long before I began to meet people. It’s one thing to get to know faces, and another to be able to put the names to the faces. It’s another thing altogether to begin learning about the lives that accompany the people, and that’s where you really get to know the people. So it was that I learned in relatively short order that there was a certain woman in the parish choir whose name was Norma. She had a husband named Barry who was one of two photographers who would be responsible for chronicling all the major happenings in the parish. Norma and Barry had one daughter whose name was Lisa, and she was involved with the youth choir.
More than twenty years later, I still remember that Norma was working at Bell Canada back then. She and her family were faithfully present and involved in the life of this parish. Whether it was the Sunday Mass, or the parish spaghetti supper, or any one of a number of other social gatherings, the Humphreys have always been here, always involved, always ready to lend a hand if needed. Life has moved on since that time when I first met Norma and her family. Lisa has grown up, gotten married to Jeremy, and they now have two beautiful children who are cherished by them and by their entire family. Barry and Norma have both since retired. They have had their share of challenges; who doesn’t in this life.
When they learned of the twins’ premature birth, and their need for medical attention, I’m sure that Norma stormed heaven with prayer, and asked her family and friends to join her in doing so. I’m sure that when Barry had to face medical challenges not so long ago, she was on her knees here in the church and elsewhere, praying for him too. You see, when people have no faith as a part of their day-to-day life, they might find themselves struggling to pray in times of trial, but for someone like Norma who has always nurtured the faith dimension of life, prayer is not a stranger. In fact, the entire community rallies around in times of need.
So it was that when she received the diagnosis of a virulent brain tumor just three months ago yesterday, I’m sure that she was shaken, but she had the assurance then of the faith that had seen her through other times of trial. In just ninety days this tumor has robbed us of this beautiful soul, and I’m sure that there are more than a few of us who are still in shock over what exactly has taken place, and how quickly it has come to pass, but I’m equally sure that because we are people of faith, to whom prayer is no stranger, we can look to our God with grateful hearts for all that we have been privileged to know and to share through the life of this woman who we commend to His mercy today.
During her three-month ordeal, I wonder how often she found herself echoing the words of Saint Paul, spoken in the second reading we heard this morning: I am being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. Facing the inevitability that our lives here on earth are only for a finite amount of days is indeed a sobering reality, but what better place to face such realities than in the Hospice where she found herself for those final days? And what better time of the year to have to face such questions, than over the Easter weekend. The Church all over the world was commemorating the Paschal Mystery, the central teaching of our faith as she herself was finishing the race.
The wisdom contained in the words of the Book of Proverbs has painted for us a picture of some pretty high ideals for which we all must strive, but I’m sure that you will agree that in so many ways, Norma achieved the standards set out by the ancient writer. If we listen with the ear of faith, we can perhaps hear the voice of Jesus which I’m sure greeted her at the gate of heaven and spoke tender, loving words to her: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Norma has no more worry now. Norma has no more pain now, but what about the rest of us who will walk out of this church later today. Perhaps this is an opportunity for all of us to examine our own lives in the light of faith. Life should be lived to the fullest every day. We need to always be prepared to identify the hungry in our world, and be willing to respond to their hunger with food which will satisfy. Our faith leaves us little choice but to identify those in our world who thirst in so many ways for the simple and the profound gift of love. All disciples of Jesus must be willing to seek out the strangers in our midst, whether they’re sitting here in the pews of this church or standing at our street corners. Can we find ways to welcome them, to make a place for them at our table? There are people in our world who are naked, perhaps not physically lacking clothing, but lacking acceptance, lacking understanding and we are the ones who must clothe them with the warmth and charity of Christ. There are people in our world who are isolated through sickness and imprisonments of so many kinds, and we must be the ones who are willing to fling wide the doors behind which they are enslaved, to unbind them from their miseries and to show them the tender care of our God.
All of this and more, Norma sought to do in so many different ways. As we gather here in this place where she met our God, where she spoke with him, where she nourished her faith, we now entrust her to the mercy of God, and trust that he will reward her with the gift of everlasting life. Together with her parents, and her two sisters, may she now look down upon us from heaven and pray for us until the day when we shall all be reunited in the Father’s house.
No comments:
Post a Comment