20th October 2022
We have had the privilege of knowing, and, for some of us, living with someone special - in the best sense of that word. She has now slipped over to our true homeland and did so in her usual way – quietly slipping away, no fuss, just doing it. And while we know it is utterly right, and she is where she belongs, we miss her deeply. And so it must be. If we care for someone, then we feel it deeply when they are no longer present in our lives in the way we have known and valued for so long.
For some death is an ultimate challenge. But I don’t think that death itself is the challenge, because we know what death is – plants die, animals die, we are familiar with that and it does not trouble us that cabbages and carrots die. What troubles us above all is the idea that this person we have known has ‘ceased to exist’. And it is not just that it is some unpleasant truth we find difficult to accept, rather there is an awareness deep within, and we see it in all the older cultures, that there is a reality beyond the merely physical, material, world into which we pass. For the Christian this is utterly certain. For the first disciples of Jesus, it was utterly certain. Jesus had died and grown cold in the tomb, but now some days later as they gathered, bewildered and lost, Jesus stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’. And they knew He had not ‘ceased to exist’, He was alive, and He was not some spectre or ghost, He was physically present, in some new mode, and talked and ate with them. Death was not an end but a beginning, a wondrous beginning into the fulness of life for which we were created.
When we celebrate a Christian funeral, we make a journey. We meet in our grief and loss, very aware of our loss; but then we move beyond our loss, to give thanks for the life of the person who has died and all they meant to us and all we have received from them. Finally, our eyes are lifted from ourselves as we pray for the person who has died. They are, we pray, on a journey to the fulness of life in God for which they were created and desired. And as we pray for them, we accompany them on the journey they are making and our eyes are lifted to the great destination to which we too are called. In our grieving we are very aware of our loss, but, now, in our prayer we are taken beyond ourselves and deeper into the awareness that death is not and end but a beginning. For a Christian, death is not ‘Good-bye’ but ‘Au Revoir’. A Christian funeral is a journey and when we emerge at the end, we are not in the same place we were when we came in.
We are gathered here for Sr M Lucy’s funeral, and I want you to stop and reflect. Are we a group gathered here with a sense of a great void in the middle of us where Sr M Lucy used to be, or are we a group with a very real sense that she is very much present here with us, with that gentle and slightly impish smile – and perhaps saying to the preacher – ‘come on, get on with it’? She is very much present here with us, even more so, in a way, than when she was physically present. She is very much present with us and, in her caring way, is putting before us some of what mattered to her above all, desiring that we grasp how valuable it is. The readings we heard are an eloquent expression of this.
These readings are taken from the ones she chose for her various jubilees. She chose them because they expressed, as she looked back at her life on her jubilees, what mattered most – not just to her but for any life. The prayer in our first reading is very eloquent.
‘This, then, I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name: Out of His infinite glory, may He give you the power through His Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.
For her, knowing the love of Christ for her, and responding to that love through her love of Him, had come to be the centre of her life. It was the only thing that could give meaning to her life – indeed to any life. And the passage from the Gospel of John, gave fuller expression of what this means in practice. ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have love you. Remain in my love.’ And then, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. Jesus loves us with the same love that flows between Him and His Father; and He has made it possible for us to love one another with the same love that flows between Him and His Father. When I love someone, it is not something I ‘do’, rather to love someone is to allow the Holy Spirit to flow through me to that person. And when they respond to that love, the Holy Spirit flows from them through me and to Jesus and the Father. It all flows from the Father, and returns to its source in Father and Son. This is the reality which came to be at the centre of Sr M Lucy’s life.
Sr M Lucy in her time as Prioress of different communities, and in her time as Prioress General gave many talks. I have never heard or read any of them but I learned a great deal from her – from her example, from the way she lived, the way she related to others; the values embodied in her response to situations. And if I had asked her for any of her talks, I have no doubt I would have got that ‘don’t be silly’ look, and I am certain she would never have produced any talk for me to read. To her, far better sources were available – books others had written, and she would recommend the writings of others, and most of all the Scriptures. She knew full well that if we have something of value to say, then if it is not embodied in the way we live and relate, then it is not really worth our uttering it.
Sr M Lucy spoke to so many through who she was. And she continues to do so, because as, with Faith and Hope, we pray and remember, not only is she very much present with us, but she is also making a gift to us; she is still a life-bearer; yes, through the life she lived and through these readings she has shared with us today, but also most importantly now through the journey she is making. For in this journey, she points us to life – to the true and eternal life for which we were created and which alone can give meaning to our life here on earth. And as we pray for her, we are with her in the journey she is making; but, in her love for us, she is still very much with us in the journey we are still making. We have not lost her, but moved into a different mode in our relationship. A relationship which will come to its fulness when, please God, after our death we are reunited in glory in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
In her life Sr M Lucy gave us so much; in her death she continues to give us so much; and we show our respects to her by being open to her gifts to us today. May she come swiftly to the fullness of life and glory she desires, and may our desire for that life and glory be deepened through our prayer together on this day. Sr M Lucy, “Thank you”, and in Faith we say, “Au Revoir”.
Fr. Peter Craddy OCSO
