Jill Willard Funeral Homily

Last night we celebrated the life of an extraordinary lady. We told stories of how she affected our lives, and it was good to cry and laugh together. Today we celebrate our shared faith, the very thing that made Jill so special. It was that faith that gave her the strength and the serenity to bear life’s burdens so very well. It is that faith that will give us the strength to continue on without her.

Nancy and I have known the Willards about 18 years, and in all those years I don’t think she was ever free of pain. But, while it seemed sometimes that her battle was all consuming, it wasn’t what defined her. It refined her. It never overwhelmed her and definitely never conquered her. Her suffering helped to form her into the person she was, and it brought out and highlighted the great strength within her, a strength that spilled out onto all of us who knew her, allowing us to walk the walk with her. And we’re all better people because of it.

It’s hard sometimes to believe the simplicity of Jesus’ statement in today’s gospel. “Come, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” It seems so simple, so easy. Just come to Jesus and the weight of all our responsibilities will lift from our shoulders. Just say the words and life will get easy. But it seemed the more Jill believed, the more she embraced Jesus’ suffering, the more she suffered in return. All her prayers that God would heal her didn’t heal her. Her suffering didn’t go away, just like that. It didn’t go away at all.

It is hard to understand why Jill was chosen to suffer as she did, and it is easy to blame God. If anyone deserved to catch a break, it was Jill. She did suffer greatly, and yet, she always had a sense of deep joy. It was a joy rooted in hope. Jill had unbounded hope. Deep, life-sustaining, irrepressible hope. 

You know, I fell in love with Jill at a card game. Paul, Jill, Nancy and I played a lot of cards when we were neighbors in Jeremy Ranch in Park City, and we usually played progressive rummy. Invariably, when it came to the final hand and Jill was holding a lousy hand, she would start buying more cards. She bought and bought so many cards she couldn’t hold them in her hand anymore. She had to use one of those plastic stands you stick your cards in. That was Jill. Whenever she was dealt a lousy hand she started picking up more cards. Maybe this is the one that will give me what I need to make the hand work. Maybe this one will be the winner. Maybe this medication will make me feel better. Maybe this surgery will do the trick. Unbounded hope that life would turn out ok. 

Just after she lost her eye, we were alone in the living room for a minute, and she grabbed my hand and said, “I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I don’t want to go there right now. I don’t want to think about it right now.” Yet within a half hour she was back to her old stubborn self, determined to make it work no matter what. 

What could have fueled such hope? It seems simplistic to say it was her faith that gave her hope, but it’s true. Jill never saw her life as a burden or a curse. Rather, she accepted them as Jesus had his own suffering, and offered them up as prayers for all of us with complete optimism. She did her best to defeat her illnesses with great courage, but she never let it change her outlook on life. 

Fr. Bob Bussen taught me that the prayers of a suffering person have the greatest power, and their sick bed is holy, almost an altar. When we suffer we are the most vulnerable, and we are forced to rely totally upon God. He used to ask sick people he visited to pray for others who were sick, and vice versa. Jill was the best example of how holy suffering can be. As Paul said in his final email update the day Jill died, she has won her final battle. It was in surrendering that she conquered.

Christians have always believed that suffering has meaning, that when we offer up our suffering for someone else it has great power. We don’t shrink from suffering when it is thrust upon us. Instead, we take something evil and turn it to the good. Suffering is a fact of life, brought about by the tendency of humanity to turn from the will of God. God does not will us to suffer, he wants us to be like we were in the garden of Eden, free from want and free from death. But God understands the reality of suffering, and he himself came to us to share in our suffering. God used death, the death of his Son, to destroy death for us all. God used the very thing that kept us from him to bring us to him. 

We take this belief from the actions of Jesus Christ himself, whose own suffering and death actually bring us salvation. Jill took that belief to heart, and quietly and simply lived her life. The afternoon she came out of her last surgery, the thing she was worried about most was that she hadn’t had a chance yet to send a card to an old friend whose son had recently died. Jill chose to give her suffering meaning by directing it away from herself as a prayer for others. 

I just read a book, Evidence of the Afterlife, written by Jeffrey Long, a medical doctor who claims to be an atheist. While in medical school he was struck by the fact that there had been no formal research done on near death experiences, and so he performed a ten year study on over six thousand people of all nations, races, ages and cultures who claimed to have had near death experiences and out-of-body experiences. One of his findings stood out to me. Virtually all the people who had what were considered true dying experiences, you know the white light, the tunnel, etc., also had an experience of a “judgment”. What they all had in common was that they saw their entire lives flash before their eyes in an instant, and what they saw was how all their actions and their inactions had affected other people. Even people who they didn’t really know very well were affected positively or negatively by what they themselves had done. It stunned many of them to see just how important other people were in their lives and how important they were in the lives of others.

Jill has prayed for everyone in this room, whether you knew it or not. She prayed in her suffering that you might not have to. She prayed for people she didn’t know and would never meet. And people who had never met her prayed for her, too. She touched countless lives through her prayer, her thoughtfulness, and her courageous example. If we are to be judged on how we affect others by our lives, Jill has nothing to worry about. And, if you thought she prayed hard for you before, just think what she’s doing right now. 

The greatest sign of God’s love for us is Jesus’ promise that there is more to life than this world alone. We just celebrated the great feast of Easter, when Jesus not only said he was the resurrection and the life, he proved it. The first words Jesus said to his disciples that Easter were “Be not afraid”. He said them over and over again. Be not afraid, because in the resurrection the promise of everlasting life has been fulfilled. We need never fear death again. Jesus’ death has conquered death, and his resurrection is our promise of eternal life. That is the hope that sustained Jill all those years.

We have no idea what is in store for us. The most wonderful thing we could imagine wouldn’t be enough. Jill now knows the fulfillment of that promise. She now sees God as he is. Face to face. And her hope is now ours.

In All Things, Charity

5^th Sunday of Easter

Cycle C

Acts 14:21-27

Rev 21:1-5a

Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

On Christmas Day of last year, a petition was added to the White House web site, urging the U.S. government to “officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group.” And you know, sometimes I agree with that statement, but not for the reasons the petitioner gave. He was responding to Pope Benedict’s Christmas Eve message, in which the pope restated the Church’s 2000 year old teaching on marriage and homosexuality. I don’t think that the Church shows hatred by being a prophet to the world. What bothers me is the hatred Christians tend to feel for one another.

“This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I like to read Catholic blogs. There are so many really good ones out there, and since I am called upon very often to defend and explain the faith, I am always looking for another insight on how to do so. Some blogs are very deep and profound. Others are funny and common sense. But what I find about just about all of them is that they are respectful, forthright, and charitable in the way they explain the truths of the Catholic Church. They show no hatred or intolerance towards those who hold differing opinions. However, the same cannot be said of the people who comment on these blogs.

And it’s not just the comments that oppose the position of the blogger. It’s the people who comment on the comments. That’s where you see the divisions among the people in the pews. That’s where you see the ignorance and intolerance and name calling and sometimes pure venom. Usually, when someone cannot articulate a good argument they resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks. 

The issues of the day have polarized us all. If we disagree with someone, we don’t have civil discourse, we attack them personally. The advent of social media means we can call people all sorts of names anonymously with no threat of reprisal. We post political statements on Face book and put bumper stickers on our cars that make sweeping condemnations of entire groups of people, not thinking that we may be calling some of our closest friends bigots or racists or worse by association. In the old days duels were fought over such insults.

But every once in awhile someone I disagree with will lay out a compelling argument, and those are the ones I like, because they force me to rethink my own position and refine my own arguments against them. But most of the time the comments are petty, like the one person who got all bent out of shape because one of the cardinals at the Pope’s installation Mass wore his stole on the outside of his chasuble rather than inside. Horrors. I guess that meant the Mass wasn’t valid.

And it’s not just a problem in the blogosphere. Practically every Sunday here at St. Mary’s I am confronted by people I call the drive-by complainers. Those folks who didn’t like this or that about the liturgy that day, and it bothers them so much that they have to unload on the poor deacon. They say something nasty and then walk away. And I am saddened that they allowed something petty to ruin their entire experience of the Mass that day. 

I’m probably going to get some today after this homily.

We are all worried about how our religious freedom is being whittled away day by day, and we see all the attacks on the Church and its members around the world, but do you blame them? How can the world see the Church as a loving presence in the world when we cannot even show love for one another? 

If we ourselves are ignorant of our own Church’s teachings or, worse yet, attack them, how can we expect the world to treat us any differently than we treat ourselves? If all we show the world is our own self hatred, how can we expect them to see anything in the Church to emulate and admire?

Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Forget all the attacks from without. Be worried by the attacks from within. You know, Jesus didn’t say, “This is how all will know you are my disciples, if you love everyone in the world.” He knew that would be an impossible dream. Instead, as usual, he focused on what was right in front of him. He knew that if only his small group of close friends could learn to love one another, then that would be an attractive example to the rest of the world. He said, first, love one another. Then go and make more disciples who love one another, and after awhile the whole world would be disciples who love one another. And that is how he would renew the face of the earth.

But we cannot seem to even get past square one. 

Jesus said our mission is to go and make disciples of the entire world. But first we must be disciples ourselves. Tramping around foreign countries as missionaries isn’t in the cards for most of us, but why can’t we simply love? It starts small. First, we must see that we ourselves are loved beyond measure, just because we are. We are celebrating the great manifestation of that love these fifty days of Easter. 

You notice I didn’t say, “First you must love yourself”. The danger of self love is that it has limits and oftentimes our love just stops there. Self love is inner directed while true love is directed outwards. Our love can fail; God’s love cannot, so build your foundation on that unchanging truth.

Then, just strive to love those closest to you. Jesus didn’t say, “Love one another as I have loved all the crowds I’ve been preaching to and healing these past three years.” He said, “Love one another as I have loved…you”. He loved his friends. It was hard enough to get them to understand who he was. Jesus didn’t show his love to the crowds, he showed it to those right in front of him who were hurting. He taught the crowds; he had compassion for and healed individuals. It is sometimes easier for us to be kind to a stranger in need than it is for us to be kind to the people in our families. Why not start there? 

A disciple is more than someone who just learns from the master; a disciple becomes like the master. A disciple patterns his or her entire life on the master’s, and then calls others to do the same. What did Jesus do? He gave his entire life for the people he loved. He never let petty differences get in the way of his true mission of love. Jesus got into some heated discussions with his opponents, and he wasn’t above calling names. But Jesus died for those Pharisees, too. 

If we truly showed that kind of love for our families, we wouldn’t have to worry about them eroding. If we showed that kind of love for our spouses, we wouldn’t have to worry about the institution of marriage. If we showed that kind of love for our children, there would be no abortion or abuse of any kind. If our families are images of Jesus, society would be transformed in just a few generations.

When there is need for correction, do so with love. St. Paul said we are to admonish one another out of love. Blessed John Paul II used to say that the best way to love someone was to tell them the truth:  To teach the truth with love. Get it right, know what you’re talking about, and then offer correction with compassion and charity.

As Blessed Pope John XXIII stated, “But the common saying, expressed in various ways and attributed to various authors, must be recalled with approval: in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Alleluia! He is Risen!

Easter Vigil

This is what it is all about. Tonight we celebrate the very reason for our existence. When you strip away all the externals, all the smells and bells, the only thing that is left is the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Not was risen but is risen. Without that key event in human history there would be no hope for humanity. It is something that we remember and something that we live today. 

Ours is not a dead faith. We do not simply remember events that happened in the past. Jesus Christ is yesterday, today, and forever. The resurrection is now. The resurrected Christ is as alive to us today as he was to the apostles. Without that reality where would we be? If all we do is remember the past where is our hope? Jesus must be alive to us every day or we have nothing but a ghost.

Can you imagine what it was like for the apostles to see Jesus alive again, in the flesh that first time? Can you imagine their confusion, their fear, and their joy? What must it have been like to embrace him once again, to feel his breath upon them, to hear his voice telling them to not be afraid? They were not simply remembering him as he had been, they were living him again. It was an experience that completely changed their lives. 

It wasn’t Jesus’ life that changed them forever, it was his death and resurrection. If Jesus had not been raised they would have just gone on with their everyday lives, perhaps a bit more cynical and jaded about the unfairness of the world. Instead, they became the most powerful evangelists the world has ever known. Just because they knew the risen Christ.

Is it the same with us? Do we really know that Christ is alive for us, here, today? Do we just believe in the stories of an ancient god or is that god truly alive? If we had heard all those wonderful stories of our faith history that we just heard tonight, and not heard the story of the resurrection, would that have been enough for us to change our lives as the apostles did? All those stories are history, but the resurrection is His story. Jesus Christ must be alive if we are to be alive. 

And Jesus is all about life. Jesus was not raised from the dead so that God could show off his great power. Jesus was raised from the dead so that we too would never die. That breath of life is what sustains us and keeps us going every day of our lives. And it is that breath of life that we are compelled to proclaim to the world. The good news of everlasting life.

Alleluia! He Is Risen!