(Minor overlap with MF01)
All of us here tonight carry in our hearts the soul and spirit of someone close to us, and probably of several people close to us whom we have lost over the years. I remember each year my brother Michael who died of an illness aged 33: that was 36 years ago, and yet there is still a gap in our family circle. We grieve not only for the one who has died, but also for that part of our own life that has died as well.
Yet while grief is a reality we all know, it nonetheless points us to those things in life that are of supreme importance, things that give us comfort in the present, and hope and strength for the future. Let me mention four of them :
First, the traditional formal eulogy today if often eclipsed today by personal and anecdotal words from children and grand-children, usually with tears and laughter and in informal style. And the thing that stands out in the midst of them all is the central importance of family ties, and family love, and the times that were spent not in public office but at the beach together, or over a meal or at a birthday party – the things that are common to us all, often taken for granted, things that don’t cost money but are a priceless part of being human.
Second, a death often evokes within us a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. One of the old hymns of the Church has the line “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away” (and daughters too). In one sense that sounds very pessimistic but I find a stronger meaning to it. Around us are plaques and memorials of our ancestors which speak of timelessness, of eternity, of a great over-arching drama in which each of us plays a part. Each of us receives life and has gifts and opportunities specific to our day and age. Each of us has a vocation to play our part in the service of others. Each of us gives life to others and in turn we give our own life up having played our part. Our life although mortal, has a purpose. We have a place in God’s abiding purpose of love.
Third, mortality speaks to us of the support we find in loss that comes from the love of family and friends. Human love is the expression of a divine love that never leaves us comfortless. In the night-time of grief, when loneliness and loss seem too hard to bear, we reach out to one another, and find comfort from each other, just as God reaches out to us and surrounds us with a love that will not let us go.
And finally, mortality speaks to us of the presence of God, one in whom we can trust as we look to a future that seems empty and uncertain. Faith does not provide answers to all our questions and anxieties about the future. Rather our faith lies in knowing that we travel with God, so that whatever the future will bring it will be all right. Faith is knowing that God’s spirit lifts us and sustains us, however empty life at times may feel.
On a plane the other day my fellow passenger told me of his experience at two funerals, one for his office secretary, much younger than he, the other for his father. He said he came away from each funeral with an incredible sense of lightness, which he defined as feeling that in spite of the loss everything would be all right. It wasn’t that he didn’t grieve; it wasn’t that he didn’t feel the loss; it wasn’t that he felt life would just be business as usual. He knew he would feel the pain of those deaths, yet at a much deeper level he had this feeling that in the overall scheme of things, all would be well. Those latter words were also used by the 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, who affirmed that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”. Not words of superficial comfort, but words of a deep conviction about the abiding presence of the love of God, a love that is with us in life and in death, mediated to us by family and friends, yet finding its source in a spring of compassion that encompasses all people in all times.
