AUNT ANNA CATHERINE’S FUNERAL HOMILY
All ten of the lepers that came to Jesus were healed. One came back, praising God in a loud voice, falling at his feet and thanking him. Jesus said, “I cured ten lepers, did I not?Where are the other nine?
Luke 17:11-19
In my computer, I have funeral homilies for twenty
uncles, aunts, brothers-in-law, cousins and various other relatives. There are
many more I have written, but I have lost during computer breakdowns or wrote in
the days before computers. That does not
count a lot of them that I wrote for neighbors and friends at Saint Theresa
some of which I still have in my computer.
This is my third family funeral homily in the last several weeks and
that doesn’t count one for neighbor growing up, Eddie Hardesty! You people need to quit dying! Don’t you know
that I am supposed to be retired, for God sake!
I decided a few years ago that I needed to start
keeping notes and ideas for relatives who are getting up there in age in case I
were asked to preach their funerals! As I got ready to write this homily, I
came across something in my files that I had written down about Aunt Anna
Catherine. It seems that I had called her on her 95th birthday. At
one point, we were talking about Uncle Bob. She was telling me what a good
husband he had been. She stopped at one point and said, “I probably did not
tell him that enough!” Without batting an eye, or having to think about it, I
said, “He knew it! He knew you felt that way!”
“I probably did not tell him enough!” The more I
thought about it, the more I reflected on the gospel reading I just read, the more I realized that that could be a very important
message today, from Jesus to us, from her to us, as we say our goodbyes. How many times we have
thought that to ourselves after someone is gone. “I probably did not tell him
or her enough how much they meant to me when they were alive.” I am reminded of
an old Bluegrass song entitled, “Give Me My Flowers While I’m Living.” It goes
like this:
In this world today
while we’re living
Some folks say the worst of us they can
But when we are dead and in our caskets
They always slip some lilies in our hand.
Won’t you give me my flowers while I’m living
And let me enjoy them while I can
Please don’t wait till I’m ready to be buried
And then slip some lilies in my hand
In this world is where
we need our flowers
A kind word to help us get along
If you can’t give me flowers while I’m living
Then please don’t throw them when I’m gone
To give our loved ones
“flowers” while they are still living means telling them how much we love them,
calling them more, spending time with them, telling them good things about
themselves. The gospel reading today and Aunt Anna Catherine’s words about Uncle Bob, challenges all of us to
give our relatives and friends their flowers while they are still alive and
can still smell them because once they are gone, it’s too late!
Ever
since I have been assigned to Louisville, thirty-seven years now, I have
celebrated a “home Mass” with my brothers and my sisters and their husbands At our annual family Christmas Masses, I have always
said at the end, “Next year one of us might not be here! Let’s take care of
each other while we can.” We lost Paul
and Tom and Kaye, pretty close together, since I started saying that!
I have developed a new habit. At the end of our phone
calls, I regularly tell my sisters and brothers that I love them. At first, it
was a little awkward, but now they are answering back – even my brothers! Aunt Anna Catherine reminds me today just how
important that is. I never want to get to the day where I have to say, “I
probably did not tell them that enough!”
As Americans, we recently celebrated, even by
ourselves, Thanksgiving Day – a day we thank God for our country, our freedom,
our faith and our material blessings. As Catholics, we celebrate a Day of
Thanksgiving every Sunday
We
call our weekly "day of thanksgiving" by its Greek name Eucharist, meaning thanksgiving. Just as our national holiday "brings our blood
family together" in gratitude, our Eucharist brings our faith family
together in gratitude.
Whether it is once a year or once a week, I don't
believe that either is enough. I believe that our lives could be enriched
deeply if gratitude would be practiced as a spiritual discipline every hour of
every day. - "always and everywhere" as the prefaces at Mass put it.
American Protestant preacher Henry Ward Beecher, an
old favorite of mine, put it this way. "Let the thankful heart sweep
through the day and, as the magnet finds iron, so it will find in every hour,
some heavenly blessings." This is the idea behind this whole funeral
homily - running our spiritual metal detectors over the world in front of us in
search of someone to encourage and something for which to be thankful!
This idea of going through the day "panning for
blessings" pays off. Ezra Taft Benson said it this way. "The more we
express our gratitude to God for our blessings, the more he will bring to our
minds other blessings. The more we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier
we become. "
Aunt Anna Catherine and Uncle Bob were very good at
affirming others by expressing their gratitude. I have always felt their
support and encouragement. They came to visit me in Somerset, Monticello and
Lebanon. They went out of their way to show their support and let me know they
were proud of me. As a result, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for
them and tried to show it to them. They
were definitely some of my very favorite uncles and aunts!
Not only do we become more happy when we cultivate
gratitude within our own hearts, it also make us holy. William Law made this
point. "Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world: it is not
he who prays most or fasts most. It is not he who gives the most alms or is
most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always
thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything
as an instance of God's goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for
it."
The ability to be grateful and express thanks is
something that must be taught to us and practiced from childhood. When it isn't,
we run the possibility of growing up believing that we are entitled to all that
we have and more. Sir John Templeton
captured this insight better than I can when he wrote: "How wonderful it
would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving
at an early age. Thanksgiving opens doors. It changes a child's personality. A
child is resentful, negative or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they
radiate happiness, they draw people."
Dear relatives and friends, this is Aunt Anna
Catherine’s legacy, this is her gift to you and me, this is the lesson of the gospel today, the gift of challenging
us to express gratitude while we can! And
so, even while we grieve this loss, we are still able to gather today and say “thank
you God” for this wonderful woman – God’s gift to all of us who knew her – Anna
Catherine Barr-Knott!
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