Joe and I had a lovely conversation last week about Gloria and himself. Rather than a formal eulogy, Joe asked me just to tell you what he said, so I am happy to do that.
Gloria Belli worked with the Castelvecchi’s at the moorings, in the bakery. Then she worked for a time at Haylie House care home as a care assistant. The rest of her working life was as a post woman in Largs; she was very popular and was admired for her kindness and thoughtfulness to her co-workers. Gloria was a very outdoor person: hill-walking, cycling, camping all around the UK – all of which she did with Joe in their early marriage and which gave them many happy memories. They also enjoyed their bus tours around the UK and meeting many new friends.
They loved their dancing. In fact, when Joe first met Gloria it was at the Moorings dance hall (which I have come to call the stomping ground for Cupid in this area!). Joe walked through the glass doors and saw this girl sitting on her own and admired her from afar. One guy asked Gloria for a dance but she said no. So, Joe stepped in, clinched the yes, and they never looked back. They danced for 51 years. They were married in St. Mary’s here on 29th March 1980 by Fr. Joseph Boyd. Between Joe and Gloria, it was love at first sight, a tremendous blessing. Gloria was Joe’s sun in the morning and his stars at night, his best friend and his beloved wife. They felt their marriage was made in heaven: God made them for each other. Ever since Gloria started taking unwell and more especially since she has died, Joe knows that he has received help from the Holy Spirit, from our Lord and from our Lady. He talks to them and knows that his time, too, will come, as he says, to transition to be with the Lord. And He knows that where the Lord is, Gloria will be, too.
My own impression of Gloria was that she was a very gentle person, a person of deep and intuitive faith, someone with an immediate understanding that the God of nature and the God of salvation are one and the same God. She was very warm-hearted towards me. She didn’t say much, but her lovely smile spoke volumes. I think there was something of the contemplative in Gloria and, now that the shadows of her final frailty are passed, I dare to hope by God’s mercy that she is contemplating directly the Lord she loved here below.
When talking with Joe last week, I was struck when he used the word transition to describe Gloria’s death and, indeed, his own departure from this world when that day comes. In fact, I remarked to him that, in earlier centuries, that was the term used by the Church to describe the passage through death to eternity. It doesn’t begin at the moment of death, but when the person becomes aware that their dying process has begun. It echoes the notion of the exodus, the passage from slavery to freedom across the Red Sea; in turn, this echoes the word used by Jesus at the transfiguration when he, Moses and Elijah are talking about his exodus, his transition, which was to take place on Good Friday.
Depending on how aware we will be during this passage to God, the Christian is invited to assume the mind of Jesus, and to offer her life to God as a sacrifice of love and gratitude. And all our readings today throw light on death as a transition, not as a dead end. In the Book of Wisdom, we are plainly told that, when the righteous die, their going only seems like a disaster: in fact, they are in peace, in the hands of God, where no torment will ever touch them. In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul so beautifully tells us that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of Christ. In other words, Christ’s love is stronger than death; Christ’s love is the mainstay of our transition through death to life. Christ’s love is, in fact, our eternal life, our bread of heaven, our living water. In the Gospel, we hear the angels ask of the women at the tomb: “why are you looking among the dead for one who lives?” What the angels mean is that, with Christ, death is no longer an experience which opposes life, but is a transition from one life to another, from mortal to immortal life. The Devil wanted death to be the end of life, but Jesus totally transformed things so that death would not be the sledgehammer to obliterate life, but become a doorway opening out to eternal life: it would usher it in.
Christ has taken the sting out of death. If we still fear it as the annihilation of our lives and of ourselves then that can only mean that we are not yet true believers in the Risen Lord. There will always, of course, be some level of fear, unless our love and faith in Christ is perfect, like that of the martyrs; but the fear will diminish the more we are personally united in faith with Jesus Christ. Some may think that faith is beyond them, or is contrary to their personal freedom, or is for the birds. None of that is true. The need for God, for a life beyond death, for a freedom from endless suffering and sadness, is more deeply rooted in the human heart than the survival instinct itself. There is nothing more human, more logical, more encouraging and hope-giving than to turn to Jesus with childlike simplicity and say, “Jesus, I want to believe in you. Help me to believe. Help me to trust. Let me not be afraid. Come to me and touch my heart. Lift me up. I surrender to you. I know I shall not be disappointed.” With simple and humble prayers such as these, the floodgates of heaven will open and fill your heart with divine grace and love. You will make a spiritual transition from the death of unbelief to the resurrection of faith. You will overcome the terror of death and discover the hope of eternity.
So many people across the centuries like Gloria have had the freedom, the humility and the obedience to accept Jesus as their Lord, their Resurrection and their Life. As we honour her memory today, let us pray for an outpouring of faith in our world so badly in need of a transition from darkness to light, from division to unity, from destruction to creativity and peace.