Homily for Memorial of Bro. Jack Mostyn, CFC

Homily for the Memorial Mass
for Bro. Jack Mostyn, CFC

May 8, 2025
Luke 24: 13-35
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

14th-century English relief
of Christ Rising

“Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter his glory” (Luke 24: 26).

The Emmaus story is very familiar.  So is suffering—our own suffering and the suffering of those we love.

Some of our suffering as we age comes from our awareness of the gradual dissolution of our bodies.  That’s neatly, poetically described by Qoheleth:

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,
when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;
before the evil days come …
before the sun is darkened …
when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men are bent,
and the grinders are idle because they are few,
and those who look thru the windows grow blind;
when the doors to the street are shut;
when the sound of the mill is low;
and one waits for the chirp of a bird,
but all the daughters of song are suppressed;
And one fears heights and perils in the street;
When the almond tree blossoms …
because man goes to his lasting home,
and the mourners go about the streets …
and the dust returns to the earth as it was,
and the life breath returns to God who gave it. (Eccl 12:1-7)

We experience this dissolution of our bodies even while we live.  Isn’t it necessary that we should suffer so as we become like the Messiah in our passage to a share in his glory?  Isn’t it necessary that Jack Mostyn should have undergone death and thus come to Christ, who shared our earthly suffering on his way to glory?

Another form of our suffering is loss.  Those whom we cherish, those on whom we rely, those with whom we form special bonds of brotherhood—one by one they pass away from us, and we ache.  Isn’t it necessary that we be separated from them—a suffering, to be sure—so that they may enter their glory, which comes not from their belonging to us but from their belonging to Christ?

Therefore, we’re happy—in a spiritual sense—to let Jack go from us.  We feel pain in our hearts, but the pain mixes with faith, trust, and hope that Jack, one of God’s beloved children, has entered the fullness of God’s love; that he now beholds God as he is (cf. 1 John 3:2) and has attained his life’s purpose:  complete union with our Lord Jesus, who suffered with and for us, who now lives with and for us.