Teagasc Remembrance Mass:, 08.11.24
Oak Park House @ 6.30pm
Introduction: I welcome you warmly to Teagasc this evening as once again we gather to remember, to recall, to remind ourselves, of those gone before us leaving footprints on the sands of time. St. John tells us not to “let our hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me”[1]. There is a lot of talk around trust in both the prophet Jeremiah and in St. John.. So let’s begin, trusting in His love and mercy …
Homily: The first burial I remember was strangely that of goldfish in what we called the Green Garden at home! I had three and probably a herd number that went with the fish bowl! The first to be buried was Kojak, the second Tiddlywinks and the third Bengy. All in quick succession!
It shows you how the television heroes of the 1970’s shaped my life, oh to be a child of the 70’s. The first episode of Kojak was released in October 1973; the first episode of the Riordan’s was 1965 with the final episode was in 1979.
From the earliest times the Church has honoured the memory of the dead with great respect. It is part of our faith and culture. I have been coming to Oakpark for the last number of years as we namecheck those gone before us. I’ve counted 160 names at the back of our booklet this evening.
These are the days at parish level when we write up our lists; we put names on memorial trees, we light our candles, we leave in our ‘List of the Dead’ – we do many things to mark that liminal moment of time with family and friends and eternal life with a loving and merciful God.
The Greek word ‘kairos’ translates for us as memory, a living memory. November brings this word, the meaning of that word alive. God enveloping our lives in a very special way, assuring us those gone, have not gone very far, because they are with God and He is very near.
As people of faith, as Catholics, the Eucharist is the source of our faith. And sometimes we forget this. That’s why it’s so good to gather in the context of Eucharist, in the context of Mass.
It prompts us to be people of faith, of hope for others in a world that is broken and bruised on so many levels. We think of those scuffling at food trucks in Gaza; those still missing in abandoned cars in Valentia and those displaced in Ukraine. We think of those languishing on lists for housing, for hospital appointments, for justice on the day when our 33rd Dail was dissolved and a general election announced for November 29th, the Feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral.
The book of Jeremiah reminds us “blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord”[2]. Without hope we are lost. It’s great the next year is a Jubilee Year of Hope! So when we feel as though everything is falling apart because of the rawness of grief, or we feel guilty because we didn’t remember them today, or we wonder: what will happen to all those precious memories when we forget, we can trust that in Jesus all will be well. He will give us hope.
Our Christian hope, sourced in the Eucharist is a hope that is grounded in faith that death is not the end, but in fact the beginning of eternal life with the Lord and with friends gone before us into eternity.
Our faith doesn’t sweeten the bitterness of death but it reassures of what awaits all of us – our belief in the resurrection. I love that Irish phrase: “Ní imithe uainn atá, ach imithe romhainn” (they are not gone from us, but gone before us). May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.
I finish with those powerful lines from Francis Ledwidge’s poem: A Little Boy in the Morning:
He will not come, and still I wait.
He whistles at another gate
Where angels listen. Ah I know
He will not come, yet if I go
How shall I know he did not pass
barefooted in the flowery grass?
The moon leans on one silver horn
Above the silhouettes of morn,
And from their nest-sills finches whistle
Or stooping pluck the downy thistle.
How is the morn so gay and fair
Without his whistling in its air?
The world is calling, I must go.
How shall I know he did not pass
Barefooted in the shining grass?
[1] Jn.14:1
[2] Jer. 17:7-8