Funeral of Mary Byrnes
Aug. 5, 2016
1 Thess 4: 13-18
Holy Cross, Champaign, Ill.
Note
that St. Paul doesn’t say that we shouldn’t grieve at the death of our loved
ones. Jesus wept at the tomb of his dear
friend Lazarus (John 11:35), even tho, presumably, he knew what he was about to
do!
But
St. Paul tells us not to “grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” By “the rest,” he means the pagan world in
whose midst these mid-1st-century Christians lived at Thessalonica. Is there anything more grievous, anything
sadder, than the mourning of people who don’t believe in God or don’t believe
in the resurrection, in life after death? who believe that this life and its
transient joys and inevitable sorrows are all there is? who believe that, in
the words of a catchy but cynical tune of the late ’70s, “All we are is dust in
the wind”?
Actually,
there is something sadder, something more grievous than the mourning of
unbelievers, of those “who have no hope” because they don’t know “that Jesus
died and rose” (4:14) and “thus we shall always be with the Lord” (4:17). What’s sadder is the death of someone who lived like a pagan, someone who died
unrepentant of his or her sins and left loved ones mourning in fear for his or
her salvation.
In
his preaching Jesus constantly invited us—all of us, for all of us are sinners,
after all—to repent and turn to him. And
he made those who came to him welcome, healing souls as well as bodies. But he also had stern warnings for those who
refuse to repent, refuse to prepare themselves for judgment: words like “depart from me, you evildoers”
(Matt 7:23) and “they will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be
wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:12; cf. 25:30).
On
the other hand, while we’re alive, it’s never too late to turn to Jesus with a
plea for forgiveness, as we learn in the gospel passage immediately before the
one I read, the passage about the so-called “good thief” executed for his
crimes alongside Jesus, who asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his
kingdom and was promised paradise that very day (Luke 23:39-43).
How
refreshing to hear a life story and the virtues of someone like Mary
Byrnes! As you heard Diane [Ruedi] describe,
she embodied kindness to people and to all God’s creatures. She also suffered patiently for 3 long
years—unintentionally also giving her children the chance to grow in holiness
by patiently attending to her needs. And
she welcomed the sacraments of our Lord Jesus for a final time last week.
The
people whose passing from us to the house of the Father we mourn are people
who, as best we can see, lived virtuously, lived like Jesus as much as we frail
humans can—worshiping God faithfully, practicing kindness, patience,
generosity, chastity, humility, etc. But
our mourning isn’t like that of those without hope—hope of eternal life, hope
of God’s tender mercy. Our hope is ever
in “the living one” who “has been raised” from the tomb (Luke 24:5-6),
who will snatch up all his faithful people to be with him always, raising them too from their graves, to “shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament,” to “be
like the stars forever” (Dan 12:3)—not the Hollywood stars, but the most
resplendent stars of God’s creation, resplendent because they radiate God’s own
glory, God’s own light, God’s own goodness.
We pray that Mary enjoy such splendor forever and that, in God’s good
time, we may join her in the Father’s house, in the place “prepared for us from
the creation of the world” (cf. Matt 25:34).
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