Funeral
Homily for John Jones
On behalf of the Pastor,
the staff and all of us here at St. Julia's, please accept our deepest condolences
on the loss of your husband, your father and your friend. It is always a sad
time to say goodbye and we have missed and will miss John’s familiar presence in
our liturgies here.
Carol, Michael and
William, John’s immediate family, gather with the rest of us to acknowledge a
hole in our lives where John used to be. This Mass is for John but it is also
about us. We miss John, we know that he
has died and will not be here with us again.
But, we are Christians and we have
hope.
There are three symbols
here today that remind us of John’s baptism.
In Baptism, the Pascal candle was lit, a white garment was placed on John
and holy water was poured over him three times.
In that baptism, John joined with Christ as part of the family of God. Today, we placed a white cloth over John once
again and we sprinkled Holy water on him in memory of that Baptism.
Behind me today is the
third symbol, the Paschal candle, burning brightly once again with the light of
Christ. It is a reminder to us of the suffering, death and most importantly,
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have in Christ, a God who suffered. We
have in Christ, the light of the world, an image for us of the first fruits
from death. We believe that Christ rose from the dead and He promised us
everlasting life with Him. This is
our hope. This is our strength to go
on. There is more to our existence than these few years here on this earth.
Through our faith, we have
confidence in life after death. Through God's mercy, we hope and pray that John
is even now on his way to his eternal reward, completely sound of mind and body.
We know that John believed, so we know that he will have eternal life. He may
have died to this existence, but he lives on in the life of Christ.
Our belief in eternal life
will comfort us, perhaps not today, but in time. Today's first reading reminds us that “The
Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” Nobody expects today to be a
time without tears, but the time will come when the tears will subside. Not
because we love John less, but because we have come to accept our loss and
realize that he is likely waiting for us to be reunited with him in the place
God has prepared for us all. I am sure that with some time, today's loss and
pain will be replaced with your best memories of the man you all loved.
We pray for John, now
beyond this mortal world, that he may be reunited with his God.
We pray for those of us
left behind in this mortal world. May we
console each other in our grief, allow the tears to flow and bring all of our grief,
pain and suffering to our God who can help us bear it all.
Video of same homily
