The Burial Liturgy for Georgia Patneaude

The Funeral Liturgy for

Georgia Patnaeude

Fredrikson Funeral Home
Halstad, Minneosta

April 12, 2015

+ I will be honest with you tonight.  don’t want to be saying goodbye to Georgia tonight. I—like many of us tonight—just aren’t ready. Yes, I know she had a long life. Yes, I know she was tired. I know it was time for her to go.  But, it’s still hard. And I am going to miss her very much.

I knew Georgia for many years. And I certainly enjoyed greatly those years I knew her.  Every time I would visit her, she would always be so happy to see me. She would brighten right up and let out little yelp of joy when I would I come in to see her.  And I enjoyed that. I have always been very grateful for that.

As I said, I, like everyone here,  will miss Georgia dearly. I will miss her kindness, her gentleness, her laugh, her great sense of humor. I will miss that almost contagious joy that she carried within her.

I know this last year was a hard one for her. I saw her three weeks ago tomorrow, and that day she was having a hard day. But, as we talked that day, I can tell you this:  she was prepared. She knew what awaited her after this life.  And it did not frighten her.

As difficult as it is right now,  the reality is this. We are saying goodbye, yes. But it is only a temporary goodbye. It is a goodbye until we see each other again.

Georgia, I can tell you, had a very deep faith and belief that we would, one day, all see each other again.  She had a deep faith in her God, who was with her and remained with her until the end. She knew that she was loved and sustained by her God.  I can assure you, her faith was strong. She never wavered, throughout all of those last trials and illnesses. She never wavered through any of the hardships of her life.  She never complained. And, I can tell you,  she never once lost her faith.

Every time I visited her and asked her is she wanted Holy Communion, she very anxiously and excitedly said, “Yes!” She was always, to the very end, a good Episcopalian and a faithful follower of Jesus.  

The scripture readings we have today are particularly apt. Our reading from Romans could have been written with Georgia very much in mind: Paul writes, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

And a bit later in Romans, we hear an even more incredible statement:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing—nothing—separates us from that incredible love God has for each of us.  It’s almost too amazing to even imagine. Georgia knew that love and that strong faith. And last Monday morning, that glory which the Apostle Paul spoke about earlier in that reading, that glory was revealed to Georgia.

She believed in that glory. She knew it awaited her. And she knew she was headed toward that glorious destination.

At the end of this service, I will lead us in what is called “The Commendation.”  For many of us, we have heard the words of the Commendation hundreds of times. But if you listen closely tonight to the words of the Commendation, you will find the heart in which Georgia Patneaude’s faith was found. In the Commendation, we will say,

Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints,
where sorrow and pain are no more,
neither sighing, but life everlasting.

And it will end with those very powerful words:

All of us go down
to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia,
alleluia, alleluia.

Those are words in which, even in the face of all that life—and yes, even death—throws at us, as it did to Georgia through her life, we, like her, can hold up our heads even then,  with integrity, bolstered by our faith in God. Even in the face of whatever life may throw at me, we can almost hear her say: I did not let those bad things win out in my life. And she did not.

“…yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia,
alleluia, alleluia.”

Even you, death, will not win out over me, Georgia seems to say. Even in the face of these awful things, I will hold up my head and I will face you, death, with strength. And, because I have faith in my God, you, death, will not defeat me.

And I can tell you, death has not defeated Georgia Patnaeude. All that joy, all that love, all that wonderful life that was contained within that little small frame of a body—all of that is not gone tonight. It is not lost. Tonight, all the good things that Georgia Patnaeude was to us—that woman of life and strength and joy—all of that is not lost.  It is not gone. Death has not swallowed that up.  Rather all of that is alive and dwells now in a place of beauty and Light inaccessible. All of that dwells in a place of peace and joy, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.  In a place in which, there never again be any more tears.

Georgia will never cry another tear again. Sadly, we’re not at that point yet in our own lives. We will shed more tears.  Certainly tonight and tomorrow we will shed more tears. But, for us who are left, we know that that place awaits us as well.  That place of light and joy awaits each of us as well.  And we will have the opportunity to dwell there.

Yes, I am brutally honest tonight. I will miss Georgia very, very much.  We will all miss her and will feel her loss for a long time to come. But, on this day in which we bid her this temporary goodbye, let us also be thankful. Let us be thankful for this woman whom God has been gracious to let us know and to love. Let us be thankful for her example to us.  Let us be thankful for all that she has taught us and continues to teach us.  Let us be grateful for the love she felt for us and the love we felt for her. And let us be grateful for all she has given us in our own lives.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Georgia. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.  Amen.

2 Easter

Low Sunday

April 12, 2015

John 20.19-31

+ I’m going to test you this morning. This is going to be a hard test. I’m going to see if anyone here actually read my book of short stories, The Downstairs Tenant. I wrote a story in it called, “I Could’ve Gone on Forever.” In that story, I talked about an astronaut and an actual famous event about astronaut in the 1960s.  So, who was the astronaut I wrote about? Or—and I’m going to make this easy for you who didn’t read it—who was the cosmonaut? It’s all right if you didn’t read the book or the story.

It was about Yuri Gagarin. And today, April 12, is the 54^th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s trip to space, making him the first  human being in space. In 1961, this was a HUGE event.  

Supposedly, the first words attributed to humankind in space came from him and they were not words of awe, or praise. The first words from humans in space were:

“I see no God up here!”

Actually those words are probably apocryphal.

But, let’s face it—he didn’t see God up there. He didn’t see God there or anywhere. You’ve heard me say it again and again.

I have deep and profound respect for atheism. I truly believe that atheism is fairly simple and straightforward. But belief—belief is hard.  And none of us can believe without a certain level of doubt. Doubt is healthy. It’s an important part of true faith.  In fact, it’s one of the healthiest things we can do as believers.

In this morning’s Gospel, we encounter doubt of course in the person of the apostle Thomas.  Doubting Thomas, as we’ve come to know him, doubted that Jesus was resurrected until he had put his very fingers into the wounds of Jesus.  It wasn’t enough that Jesus actually appeared to him in the flesh. Obviously, Jesus wasn’t a ghost or something after all.  He stood there in the flesh—wounds and all.  Only when he had placed his finger in the wounds, would he believe.

It’s a strange and wonderful story.  I always liked this story and what it stands for. I think it’s always interesting to hear this story of Doubting Thomas.  Thomas, I think, is so much like us in many ways.  We sometimes do need little bits of proof to make our faith meaningful.  We sometimes need to touch the wounds of our own faith to actually believe.  We sometimes need to proof just to get us through the difficult phases of our belief.

But, the fact is, we are not St. Thomas.  For the rest of us, we don’t get it so easy.  Our doubts are not as easily done away with. Jesus is probably not going to appear before us—in the flesh.  And we are not going to have the opportunity to touch the wounds of Jesus.

Let’s face it, to believe without seeing, is not easy. It takes work and discipline. A strong relationship with God takes work—just as any other relationship in our life takes work.  It takes discipline.  It takes concentrated effort.  There will be good days and bad days in our relationship with God.

And with that, we cannot get around the fact there will be times of doubt.  We will question.  We will, however briefly, question God’s actions, God’s love for us. Or even that God exists at all.  We might even question the actual existence of God at times. It’s important to question.  Questioning means we’re not robots. And doubting is not a bad thing in and of itself.  Without some doubt, we would, again, be nothing more than unthinking and unquestioning robots.  And that is not faith.

Faith is being able to weigh both the certainties and uncertainties and still make that step forward into the unknown and hope and believe that we will be sustained.  Doing so is not the easiest road to take.  It takes constant work to make that step into the unknown.  Belief doesn’t—and shouldn’t—come easy.  It takes constant discipline to believe in something we can’t see or touch.  It takes constant discipline to believe that there is something out there that we cannot see or feel that will sustain us when we take that step forward.

In a sense, we are sometimes like blind people groping in the dark, trying to understand who and what God is in our lives.  We make our guesses.  We see God as we want to see God.  We often form God into our image when we can’t do anything else. And when we do that, it’s easy to say that God of our own perceptions doesn’t exists because…that God doesn’t exist.

There’s a great quote I once heard:

“The same God many atheists don’t believe is the same God I don’t believe in either.”

That god is often a god of our own perceptions,a  god created in our image. And I do not believe in that god. If that were THE god, then I too would be an atheist.

But it isn’t that easy, sadly. Now, for Thomas, he saw.  He touched. It was all made clear to him.  We however don’t get that chance.  We are often just groping about in the void, trying to make some sense of who this God is that we follow and love and worship.

“Blessed are those who believe but don’t see,” Jesus says this morning in our Gospel reading.

We are those blessed ones.  We are the ones Jesus is speaking of in this morning’s Gospel.  Blessed are we.  We believe, but don’t see.  Yet.

We are the ones who are able to look into the void, into the very depths, and, unable to see God with our eyes, we somehow still have faith.  Seen or unseen, we know God is there.  And our faith is not based on seeing God here.  Because we have faith that one day, yes, we will see God. We have this faith because the one we the follow—Jesus—showed us the way forward.  He stepped out into that void and was held up by God.  He still motions to us to come forward, to step into what we think is a void.  Because Jesus did what he did, we know we too will be held up by God.  And because he died and was resurrected, even though we might doubt it at times, even though it doesn’t make sense to our rational minds, we know—deeply—that this is what awaits us as well.  And, on that glorious day, we will run to God and see God face to face.  And in that moment, our faith will be fulfilled.

Blessed are you who believe but don’t see now.  The Kingdom of Heaven is truly yours.

At the grave of Dolores Frank (1917-1962) Calvary Cemetery, Rockville, Minnesota

I don't usually inflict my poems on others, but here's a poem I wrote for my friend Gin Templeton (co-author of our book, This Grass) for he birthday today. Happy birthday, Gin. 

Copyright (c) 2015 by Jamie Parsley

Easter

April 5, 2015

+  I have never made a secret of this fact…but, I LOVE Easter. Some people are Christmas people. Some people are Easter people. I’m definitely an Easter person.  To be honest, I’ve never been a big Christmas fan. For me, this day is100 times better than Christmas.

During this last week, I actually got two opportunities to celebrate Easter in advance (something that doesn’t happen with Christmas). On Tuesday and on Thursday, we had funerals for two of our parishioners who both died on March 25. Funerals in the Episcopal Church are like little Easters. We get to light the Paschal Candle. We get to say the word Alleluia, even though we’re not supposed to during the Lenten season that precedes Easter.  And we get to concentrate on the fact that death, in the end, has no real power over us.

That is what Easter is all about. See, this is why I LOVE Easter.

But what’s even better about Easter in my opinion is that, unlike Christmas, which when it’s over it’s over (people put out that Christmas tree the day after Christmas), Easter happens again and again for us who are followers of Jesus. We get to experience it and all it represents mutliple times over the year.  And why shouldn’t we?  When we celebrate Easter, we are celebrating life. Eternal life.

Rob Bell one said,

“Eternal life doesn’t start when we die. It starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.”

I love that. Resurrection is a kind reality that we, as Christians, are called to live into.  And it’s not just something we believe happens after we die.  We are called to live into that Resurrection NOW.  By raising Jesus from the dead, God calls us to live into that joy and that beautiful life NOW.  The alleluias we sing this morning are not for some beautiful moment after we have breathed our last.  Those alleluias are for now, as well as for later. Those alleluias, those joyful sounds we make, this Light we celebrate, is a Light that shines now—in this moment. We are alive now.  We have already died with Christ when we were baptized.  And in those waters, we were raised with him, just as he is raised today and always. Easter and our whole lives as Christians is all about this fact. Our lives should be joyful because of this fact—this reality—that Jesus died and is risen and by doing so has destroyed our deaths.

This is what it means to be a Christian. Easter is about this radical new life.  It is about living in another dimension that, to our rational minds, makes no sense.  Even, sometimes, with us, it doesn’t make sense.  It almost seems too good to be true.  And that’s all right to have that kind of doubt. It doesn’t make sense that we celebrating an event that seems so wonderful that it couldn’t possibly be true. It doesn’t make sense that this event that seems so super-human can bring such joy in our lives.

Today we are commemorating the fact that Jesus, who was tortured, was murdered, was buried in a tomb and is now…alive.  Fully and completely alive.  Alive in a real body. Alive in a body that only a day before was lying, broken and dead, in a tomb. And…as if that wasn’t enough, we are also celebrating the fact that we truly believe we too are experiencing this too. Experiencing this—in the present tense.  

Yes, we too will one day die. But, THAT doesn’t matter. What matters is that that death is already defeated. We are already living, by our very lives, by our baptisms and our faith in Jesus, into the eternal, unending, glorious life that Jesus lives in this moment. Our bodies MAY be broken. Our bodies WILL die. But we will live because God raised Jesus to life.

What we are celebrating this morning is reality.  What we are celebrating this morning is that this resurrected life which we are witnessing in Jesus is really the only reality. And death is really only an illusion. We aren’t deceiving ourselves.  We’re not a naïve people who think everything is just peachy keen and wonderful. We know what darkness is. We know what death is.  We know what suffering and pain are.  Most of us here this morning have had losses in our lives. We know the depths of pain and despair in our lives.

What Easter reminds us, again and again, is that darkness is not eternal.  It will not ultimately win out.  Light will always win.  This Light will always succeed.  This Light will be eternal.

I am honest when I say that part of me wishes I could always live in this Easter Light.  I wish I could always feel this joy that I feel this morning.  But the fact is, this Light will lose its luster faster than I even want to admit.  This joy will fade too.

But I do believe that whatever heaven is—and none of us knows for certain what it will be like—I have no doubt that it is very similar this the joy we feel this morning.  I believe with all that is in me that it is very much like the experience of this Light that we are celebrating this morning—an unending Easter.  And if that is what Heaven is, then it is a joy that will not die, and it is a Light that will not fade and grow dim. And if that’s all I know of heaven, then that is enough for me.

The fact is, Easter doesn’t end when the sun sets today. Easter is what we carry within us as Christians ALL the time.  Easter is living out the Resurrection by our very presence.  We are, each of us, carrying within us this Easter Light we celebrate this morning and always.  All the time.  It is here, in our very souls, in our very bodies, in our very selves. With that Light burning within us, being reflected in what we do and say, in the love we show to God and to each other, what more can we say on this glorious, glorious morning?  What more can we say when God’s glorious, all-loving, resurrected realty breaks through to us in glorious light and transforms us;

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Good Friday

April 3, 2015

+ Last night I preached about how the story of Jesus, for us as followers of Jesus, becomes our story too. Well, here we are.  This too is our story. This is the part of the story we don’t want to be ours.

The bleakness.

The stripped away austerity.

Death.

We have reached the lowest point in this long, dark week. Everything seems to have led to this moment.

To this moment—this moment of the cross, the nails, the thorns. To this moment of blood and pain and death. To this moment of violence and utter destruction.

We are here, in this moment, not finding comfort, not finding consolation. We are here facing not only Jesus’ death, but our own death as well. And nothing fills us with more fear than this.

Here is our identity.

We are reminded of it every time we gather at this altar to celebrate the Eucharist.  We are reminded of it every time, in the Eucharist, the priest raises the broken Bread and shows it to us.

Yes, this is Jesus’ death. But it is ours too. In this dark moment, our own brokenness seems more profound, more real.  We can feel this brokenness now in a way we never have before.  Our brokenness is shown back to us like the reflection in a dark mirror as we look upon that broken, emaciated body on the cross.

But…as broken as we are, as much of a reminder of our own death this day might be, so too is the next  24 hours. What seems like a bleak, black moment will be replaced by the blinding Light of the Resurrection.  What seems like a moment of unrelenting despair will soon be replaced by an unleashing of unrestrained joy. What seems like an eternal brokenness will replaced by complete wholeness.

Yes, we might die, but God is not dead. Yes, we might be broken, but God will restore all that is broken. This present despair will be turned completely around. This present darkness will be vanquished.  This present pain will be replaced with a comfort that brings about peace.  This present brokenness will be healed fully and completely, leaving not even a scar.

God will prevail even over even this.

This is what today is about too. This is what our journey in following Jesus brings to us. All we need to do is go where the journey leads us and trust in the one who leads.

Maundy Thursday

April 2, 2015

+ This week is, of course, an emotional week. In addition the two Funerals we had this week, saying goodbye to two people who were friends to many of us, we also have the memory of what we are commemorating this week.

For me anyway my emotions are right on the surface, as they often are during Holy Week. I think they are because I realize that this week is more than what it appears on the surface. Yes, we are commemorating Jesus’s last days. But, as I said on Sunday, following Jesus means making his story our story as well. That’s not an easy thing.

I find myself thinking of my last days as well. In walking with Jesus, in following him, we are reminded, in no uncertain terms, that there will be a time when we too will be going through our own last hours, when we too will be eating our last meal, when we too will be turning away from this world and looking toward the next.

In my emotional state this week, I for some reason, was thinking about my father. And I was thinking about his last days and his last meal. I remember in the days after his death and funeral, I had to clean out his pickup. As I did so, I found on the front seat, an empty bag from Hardee’s. It hit me hard for some reason. I know he ate too much fast food, but it was easy food for him with his busy schedule. I shared my finding of the Hardee’s bag a day or two later with a friend of his, and this friend said, “Yeah! You know I saw him driving out of the drive-in at Hardee’s on Main Avenue that day before he died!”

That stayed with me all these years.  For some reason, I cannot pass that Hardee’s to this day without thinking that is where my dad got his second-to-last meal (he ate is supper that night at home, of course). There was something about that physical Hardee’s bag that struck me and had such meaning to me.  And it reminds me of what we are commemorating this evening.

This evening of Maundy Thursday is all about remembering and it is about the physical.  Tonight, we are experiencing physical signs of God’s presence.  We are being anointed in absolution for our sins. We are coming forward to be fed with Body and Blood of Christ. In fact, these next few days are also about that merging between the physical and spiritual—about, truly, Incarnation. This physical body of Jesus will tomorrow be tortured and then will be nailed to the Cross.  It will die and be laid in a dark tomb.  On Saturday, it will be there, laid out, broken and destroyed.  But on Sunday, that physical body will be raised out of that darkness.  It will rise out of that destroyed state.  It will come forth from that broken disgrace and will be fully and completely alive and present.

But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  For now, we are here, in this moment.  We are here on Maundy Thursday, experiencing the physical and spiritual life that we have been given.  We are preparing ourselves to remember that Last Supper, as we do every Sunday.

I think we often take for granted what we do at this altar each Sunday and every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist.  I know I do occasionally. But what we celebrate together here is not something we should take for granted.  What we celebrate here is truly an incredible and beautiful thing.  It is more than just some memorial Jesus left us.  It is more than just nice, quaint practice of the Church.  It is a prescursor.

This meal is really our last meal as well. This is the last real meal that will ultimately sustain us.  

But it’s even more than just that too.  It also lifts the veil that exists right now, right here between each of us.  And we do live in a veiled world.  We live in a world in which we ignore each other, in which we really and truly don’t SEE each other.  Here, at the Eucharist, that veil too is lifted.

Tonight, we, the followers of Jesus, are witnessing Jesus truly humble himself, even in the face of his impeding death.  He humbles himself in the washing of feet. And he humbles himself in his giving us these basic element of bread and wine.  And he invites us, as well, to enter into this humbling experience—this experience in which we need to encounter each other in this most basic of acts.  He essentially invites us to enter into what Nora Gallagher calls “the kingdom of the living bread.”

What we experience here with each other at this altar in Holy Communion is truly a bridge of sorts.  We find that the divine—God—is present to us in some thing we can touch and taste and in those gathered with us here.  And more than just some spiritual practice we do, we do this not just with our spirits, but with our very bodies as well. We do it with our very physical presence.  And, in doing so, we realize that we are catching a glimpse of the resurrected state that we will so glorious celebrate in just a few days time on Sunday morning.

What comes to us at this altar, is truly the manna come down from heaven.  It is a reminder to us of the sacrifice of that Lamb of God, which we found prefigured in our reading from Exodus.

Whenever I raise the bread at Communion, you hear me say, “This is the Lamb of God. This is the one who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are we are invited to this supper.”

This not just quaint language we use in the church.  This is truth.  Yes, this communion is not going to quench our physical thirst or cure our growling stomachs.  By outward standards what we do at this altar might seem frivolous.

But, as Nora Gallagher writes: “Taking Communion…is a creative acts, and it makes no more ‘sense than writing a poem, or for that matter, reading one. It isn’t going to get you anywhere in the world; it’s not networking; it has no practical worth.” And she is right.

Simone Weil once said, every creative act is a “folly of love.”

Still, for us, who celebrate this mystery together, we do leave here filled.  We do leave here spiritually fed.  We do come away with a sense that God is present and that God goes with us—each of us—all of us—from this altar and from this church, into the world.

So, let us come forward to this altar tonight, with each other.  Let us come forward to this kingdom of the living bread.  Let us also come forward on this night in which Jesus instituted this incredible sacrament in which he reminds us that God is with us, on this night in which he humbled himself and invites us, as well, to humble ourselves.  Let us humble ourselves and be fed on what is essentially our own last meal.  And let us go from here, humbled and fed, to feed others and to be the Presence of Christ to others.

The Funeral Liturgy for Patricia Butler

Patricia A. Butler
(March 17, 1924– March 25, 2015)

April 2, 2015

+I am very grateful this morning. I am grateful for the fact that we get this opportunity to  commemorate the life of  Pat Butler and to commend this wonderful woman to God. She was an amazing woman.

I first got to know Pat not long after I first came to St. Stephen’s in 2008. I went over to her home and visited her. And we had a great conversation about her life, about Fargo in 1950s and 1960s, and found out we knew many of the same people.

Over the years, she would often talk about the first years of this congregation of St. Stephen’s. She was one of the charter members of this congregation when it was founded in 1957. And this church was certainly very important to her.

We at St. Stephen’s are very grateful for all that Pat Butler did to make our congregation what it is.  She was a remarkable woman—and I don’t say that lightly. She was a woman of great strength and of contagious warmth.  Whenever I would come and visit her, she would look at me with that brilliant spark in her eyes and would welcome me as though she had known me all her life.  I liked that.

Now I know that if Pat were here this morning, she would be poo-pooing me to be quiet about all these glowing comments about her.  Because in addition to being a strong person—she was also pretty modest.  

And, I can say in all honesty, that she really is with us here this morning.  I am of the belief that what separates us who are alive and breathing here on earth from those who are now in the so-called “nearer presence of God” is a thin one.  And because of that belief, I take a certain comfort in the fact Pat is close to us today.  She is here, in our midst, celebrating her life with us. And we should truly celebrate her life.  It was a good life.  It was a life full of meaning and purpose. And it was a life full of faith in God.

As her priest, I can tell you that, for Pat, her faith was important to her and I think that faith continues on with those of us who are here celebrating her life.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we hear Jesus say those wonderful warm words of welcome.

“In my Father’s place there are many mansions.”

In other translations, we hear, instead of mansions, “dwelling places.” In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  I like that idea of mansions better. After all, would a God of love provide us, who made it through the perils of this life, with anything less than a mansion? Would God provide Pat with anything less than a mansion?  I don’t think so. And I am fully certain that God has indeed provided a mansion for Pat.

That is probably the best consolation we can take away from today. After all, that wonderful life of hers is not over by any means.  It has only blossomed into its fullest meaning. In God—in the God she loved and served—Pat is now fully and completely herself.  She is, in this moment,  whole.

Of course that doesn’t make any of this any easier for those who are left behind. I, for one, am going to miss her.  I am going to miss my visits with her and sharing Holy Communion with her and hearing her wonderful stories.  Whenever anyone we love dies, we are going to feel pain.  That’s just a part of life.

But like any pain, like any sorrow, our feelings of loss are only temporary as well.  They too will pass away. This is what gets us through.

Our faith shows us that we will see her again. And when we do, it will be glorious.

This is where we find our strength—in our faith that promises us an end to our sorrows, to our loss. That is what this Holy Week is all about.  Yes, Jesus, this week, was betrayed, suffered and was murdered. Those who loved him felt a despair like no other despair. On that Friday afternoon when he died, few of them could ever imagine that there would ever be joy or hope again. And yet, on that Easter morning, their tears were turned to smiles and their sorrow was turned to joy.

Today, it is an unending Easter day for Pat. And that glorious day awaits us as well.  That is what we hope in. That is where our faith lies.

When the Anglican priest and poet George Herbert said, “Christ dries our tears with his grave clothes,” he wasn’t just speaking poetically.

He was saying that, truly, Christ comes to us in the midst of our losses and shows us the way to Life—to a life reborn out of death.  Into a life without end.  It is a faith that can show us with startling reality every tear we shed—and we all shed our share of tears in this life, as I’m sure Pat would tell you—every tear will one day be dried and every heartache will disappear like a bad dream upon awakening.  Pat knew this faith in her own life and we too can cling to it in a time like this. It is in a moment like this that I am thankful for the fact that I knew Pat—I am thankful for the lessons she taught me—because even now she can help someone like me to understand my faith.

So this morning and in the days to come, let us all take consolation in that faith—that, with God, Pat is complete and whole and beautiful at this moment.  

Today, it is Easter morning for Pat—an Easter morning that will never end.  And let us be glad that one day we too will be sharing with her in that unending joy.  Amen.