Life: too short

FUNERAL HOMILY FOR PAUL SEATON

Let me begin today addressing a word of condolence to Mary, Maryanne, Paul, Fred, Laura-Anne and all of Paul’s family.  I say a word of condolence, yet I know that no words can adequately take away the pain or the doubt that you have faced in the past few days.  There is a level at which all of this still seems like a dream; a bad dream from which we will one day awaken.

Paul had hopes and dreams, like we all do.  His was a bright young man with a promising career.  He cherished the gift of his children and he loved spending time with them.   He loved making them feel at ease; he loved to make them laugh.  This is what we all long for: the ability to gather with friends and family, to celebrate the blessings we have received.  None of us would ever have predicted that we would be gathered here today, struggling to make sense of the fact that this young man will no longer walk among us as one of us.  The virtuous persons always seem to be taken before their time.  It’s natural for us to expect that we will live to a ripe old age and that we will spend many happy years surrounded by those we love, but none of us knows how many years we will be given.

We have come to this place today, not to try to make sense out of this experience, but rather to celebrate the gift that Paul has been to so many, and to celebrate the fact that the promise made to him on the day of his baptism has now been fulfilled.  Long years ago, the apostle Paul tried to explain that our lives here on earth are only a preparation for the moment when we shall all be changed, when our perishable bodies, which can be beaten, bruised and broken, will become imperishable, when our mortality will be replaced with immortality as we gaze upon the face of our God.  This change, he says, will happen in the twinkling of an eye, but when it does, there are always others, those we have loved, and those who have loved us, who are left to look on, uncomprehending.

At another moment in time, Mary, the mother of Jesus stood surrounded by a few others too.  She watched uncomprehending as her son called out from the cross: My God, my God, why have you deserted me?  She who had always been able to soothe his pain before could do nothing now to help except to watch and to pray.  When Paul lay in the hospital last week, those who stood by his side would have done anything if it meant that he would be restored to health, yet this was not to be.  There are many questions which seem to have no adequate response, yet we are a privileged few, for what we are witnessing here today is part of a much bigger mystery.

None of us is God, and only God understands why Paul has been taken from us.  It’s natural for us to want to know why.  As he wrote computer programs, I’m sure that he often wondered why some of them would not work.  I’m sure he spent countless hours figuring it out, until it did work, but this mystery is not like a computer program.

Dear friends, ours is not the task of solving the puzzle of life and death.  Ours is simply the task of praying Paul into the loving arms of God, and of rejoicing with him because just as God raised his own Son from the dead and restored him to life, so too He restores Paul to the fullness of life, not a physical, corporeal life, but the fullness of life which we will all one day enjoy.

As a pledge of his abiding presence among us, and as a reminder that we are all destined to live with him in heaven, Christ gives us his body and blood, gifts which we will share at His table in a few moments, and when we have completed our prayer here in the Church, we will take Paul’s body to its place of rest.  Once this day has come and gone, we may visit his grave to pray, like Mary, the mother of Magadala, Salome and the other Mary were doing after the Sabbath was complete, but never forget that while his mortal remains will be buried, he himself is risen, he is not there.