The Requiem Mass for Barbara Farrar Thene

 

Gethsemane Cathedral

Fargo, North Dakota

August 13, 2022

+ It is a true honor to be a part of this service in which we give thanks to God for the wonderful life of Barbara Farrar Thene.

I actually have known Barbara for many years.

And I certainly greatly enjoyed greatly those years I knew her, though it had been some times since we had actually been in touch, certainly not as often after I became the Priest at St. Stephen’s in north Fargo.  

And I can say, this afternoon, that, like everyone here  I will miss Barbara dearly.

When I went over last Sunday to anoint her and pray the Prayer at the Tioem of Death with her family, we knew then that we were bidding her goodbye.

It is a goodbye, yes, today as well.

But I do need to stress this today;  it is only a temporary goodbye.

It is a goodbye until we see each other again.

Barbara 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.

And she is a great example to us of a Christian who truly lived her faith, rather than just telling other people about her faith.

She was a good Episcopalian after all.

Most Episcopalians don’t feel the need to go on too strongly about their faith.

But I can assure you, her faith was strong.

And I don’t think she never once lost her faith, certainly not in these last years.

She was someone who truly believed that “through God all things are possible.”

She knew that her God sustained her and held her up.

She was always, to the very end, a good Episcopalian and a faithful follower of Jesus.

And certainly, she loved this particular church, Gethsemane Cathedral.

It is very appropriate that her ashes will lie within the walls of this church building, alongside David’ ashes.

I actually officiated at David’s Committal way back in August of 2011.  

And I would say that she also had a deep love for The Book of Common Prayer.

 Now, people often ask me, “so, what is it you Episcopalians believe?”

And I say, “We believe what we pray.”

We’re not big on dogmas.

But we are big on prayer and worship.

Our liturgy—what we find contained in our Book of Common Prayer—encompasses our beliefs very well.

And, I can tell you, that it certainly did for Barbara.

If you asked her, “Barbara, what do you believe?”

She would no doubt be quick to point you to the Book of Common Prayer.

So, for some one who believed that, who believed what she prayed the Episcopal Church was the right place to be.

Inf act, in your bulletin for today, you will see printed a prayer that Barbara herself wrote out and prayed every day.

That prayer comes from the book of Common Prayer.

It is a beautiful prayer.

Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It is actually a grace prayed at meals.

It can also be found on page 835 in our current Book of Common Prayer.

And it was first introduced in the 1928 version of the American Book of Common prayer.

But it is a prayer that in so many ways encompasses what it means to be a Christian.

It is about asking God to give us true gratitude for life and all the beautiful things that life gives us, and it is about being mindful of the needs of others.

It all about the two great commandments, on which Jesus based his entire message.

Love God.

Love others.

And by praying that prayer every day, Barbara lived into that faith.

Barbara sought to do that in her own life.

That prayer is a prayer I encourage you, like Basbrara to take from here, clip from the bulletin, and pray every day.

And I will guarantee that if you do, your awareness of God and the needs of others will change.

You will notice God at work in this world in ways you might not have before. 

She also had a deep love for Scritpure.

As we were planning this service, it was actually fairly easy to find the scriptures we just heard today, because we do so by using Barbara’s own Bible.

That Bible was very well used.

It was filled with highlights and annotations.

And she wrote personal notes throughout.

Scripture sustained her.

So, as a result of that deep love for the scripture, we have these scripture readings today that we found in Barbara’s Bible.

Our reading from Romans speaks very clearly to us today:

Paul writes, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ”

If those words don’t speak to us loudly and clearly today, nothing else does.  

And a bit later in Romans, we hear this:

“

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

It is in hope that we are saved.

For those of us who hope, we will be find what we hope for.

Barbara knew that strong hope.

She waited for that hope patiently.

And last Monday, that glory which the Apostle Paul spoke about earlier in that reading, that glory was revealed to Barbara.

At the end of our service today, I will lead us in what is called “The Commendation.”

The Commendation meant the world to Barbara, as it does to all of us who hear it, and more importantly, believe it.  

Now for many of us, we have heard the words of the Commendation hundreds of times.

But that, as Barbara would no doubt would tell us, is no excuse to not pay attention.

Because if you do pay attention, you will find the heart in which Barbara Thene’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.

Alleluia is a word of praise. It means “Praise Fod.”

It is a word of joy.

Now, it might seems strange that we are using words of praise and joy at the grave, so to speak.

But that is how our faith works.

Those are words are defiant words.

Words in defiance of death.

We know Barabara would love that.

These words seem to say to us that no matter what life—or yes, even death—throws at us, we, like her, can hold up our heads even then, with integrity, bolstered by our faith in God and we can definatly stare death down. .

Even in the face of whatever life may throw at me, we can almost hear her say, I will not let any of those bad things win, not even death.

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

Even you, death, will not win out over me.

Even in the face of these awful things, I will hold up my head and I will face you with strength.

 And, because I have faith in my God, you, death, will not defeat me.

That is how Barbara faced the death and the glory that was revealed to her following that death.

Today, all the good things that Barbara Farrar Thene was to us—this  truly amazing woman who was so full of strength and character and integrity—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 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.

Except, maybe, tears of joy.

And for us who are left, we know that that place awaits us too.

That place of light and joy awaits each of us as well.

And we to will have the opportunity to dwell there.

I will miss Barbara.

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 and continues to teach us.

And let us be grateful for all she has given us in our own lives.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Barbara.

At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

Amen.