I want to thank Mary’s family for sharing with us the many good and admirable things about her and who she is. They paint a beautiful picture of a beautiful soul: her love for family and friends, her being a people person in the way she welcomed everyone, listened to their chat and needs and advised them with kindness and understanding. She loved life and she worked hard as a wife, mum and employee. In the hearts of so many, and especially of her loved ones, Mary left an indelible impression by her strength of presence and her unmistakeable love. We also learned from the eulogy that, like all of us, Mary had her share of suffering: she lost her son Neil as a boy to illness and, later in life, she herself succumbed to mental illness before the Lord called her to the next life. But there are three things in the eulogy which struck me in a special way and are worth commenting on further. The first was the lovely phrase the family addresses to Mary, “thank you for being you.” The second was when they said, “the love she gave us will be with us eternally” and the third was Mary’s love for the song, “One day at a time, Sweet Jesus.”

Thank you for being you. The family didn’t say, “thank you for having been you.” No, they don’t see Mary as “having been” but as “being.” And this contains a profound truth. The human person once created is infinite; they are never a “has been.” God created us to be for ever. He never disposes of us as a bygone, as if we were out of date. Those things you buy in the supermarket say “best before” this or that date. God marks our souls with “best for ever.” Death falsely claims to eliminate us, to undermine and undercut our dignity and the good and virtuous we have done in this life. But death is a liar. Hear again the words of the reading from the Book of Wisdom: “In the eyes of the foolish the souls of the righteous seemed to have died and their departure was thought to be an evil thing. And their going from us was thought to be their destruction; but they are at peace.” Death tries to pull the wool over our eyes as if to taunt us that our loved ones no longer exist. It’s true that we no longer see them, but, as the reading says, we are fools if we think that out of sight means out of existence. For our fervent prayer and confident hope is that they are at peace. God’s eyes see what and whom our eyes do not. Whether we are alive or dead to this life, we are all alive to God. The family thanks Mary for being who she is, but it is the Lord who makesMary who she is and who keeps her as who she is until His mercy purifies and glorifies who she is in His sight, body and soul. Death was never an ingredient in the DNA which God created in any human being. Our true DNA is eternity, not death; our true destiny is not the grave but the throne of God. And so we can go on thanking Mary for being you because she is in the hands of God.

That’s why the second phrase I picked out from the eulogy is perhaps even truer than the family might have realised. They said that the love Mary gave them will be with them eternally. That, too, can only be true if Mary is eternal. By God’s gift we are all created for eternity. Mary’s love is eternal for you, her beloved family, because God’s eternal love for Mary empowers her to love you thus. Without God, our love, like our life, fades and dies. If death is the end of our existence, then our love dies with us and all our memories of love die too. And we rightly protest at such a horrendous thought because we all sense in our guts that love is not meant to die, that it defies and is stronger than death. This is a good instinct. In fact, it is a spark of the divine in us because no one more than God protests against death. No one more than God loves and His love is stronger than death because it is greater than life. In God, Mary’s love will be with you eternally.

And how do we know that God’s love is stronger than death and capable of destroying death and restoring life? Well, Mary’s favourite song gives us the clue. One day at a time, sweet Jesus! It is this sweet Jesus whose love for all of us and for each of us led Him to enter into death and to destroy it from the inside as only He could because He had never sinned but had only ever loved with a love beyond all telling. The love by which He died for us brought Him out of the grave in his resurrection to show and prove that love is stronger than death, not just his own death but all our deaths. He will die no more. All who believe and trust in Him and seek to love Him will likewise be raised from death, will love eternally like Him. He Himself taught us not to worry about tomorrow because the trouble of each day is sufficient to itself. And the reason we need not worry any more about tomorrow, today or yesterday is because the Day He rose from the dead is the eternal Day which frees us from fear and thus from worry and anxiety. So, whether we are poor, are mourning, hungering or thirsting or being reviled or persecuted, our faith in Christ makes us blessed, not because we are suffering those things, but because the Day of liberation and of future and eternal blessedness has already dawned. And it will have no end.

It is our sincerest and most heartfelt prayer that Mary may soon enter into that Day. Who knows? Perhaps it will be Neil who will take her by the hand when her time comes. Mary’s friendly and welcoming face we pray will be met by the equally friendly and welcoming faces of saints and angels, of all her loved ones who have gone before her and most of all by the glorious face of the sweet Jesus of whom she loved to sing. As Mary has now run her race to the end, the spotlight turns back to us as we travel through this life. We cannot return to our lives after the death of a loved one and go back to business as usual. It is madness to lose this opportunity to look again at our lives, our priorities, the values we espouse. Christ alone holds the keys of death and eternity. Since we know that we will most certainly die one day, it is a matter of common sense that we reach out to Him to show us how to live before we die. For our destiny after death is determined by how we live before death. Surely, we want to try and be among the righteous whose souls are in the hands of God and who are therefore at peace. Surely, we want to be among the blessed who will inherit the Kingdom of God. Surely, we want to love eternally both Christ and all who are with Him singing His sweetness in the eternal Day. We want all these things for Mary. Can we want them any less for ourselves? Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord ….