From the family eulogy, it’s obvious that Bob Traynor had a very full life and lived it to the full. Between family, work and sport, he engaged with all the good life had to offer. He lived it as a gift and literally ran with it. What struck me most from the eulogy, though, was what Moira said about Bob and Rose: their love lasted over 60 years. And I am sure that it didn’t just last but got deeper and stronger and fuller with every passing moment. It also became broader, since their love soon embraced their children and grandchildren, and I am sure that many another felt the warmth of that love in different places and times of their life together.

Saint John of the Cross tells us that “in the evening of life, we will be judged on love.” Today, as we all know, the word love is often abused to describe experiences which have nothing to do with real love. True love is self-sacrificing love; it desires the true and lasting good of the beloved and will put that good before itself. Rose and Bob have lavished that kind of selfless love on one another throughout their over 60 years together, especially in the final trial of Bob’s earthly pilgrimage. Love is perfected in suffering.

That kind of faithful love in suffering is the hallmark of God’s own love. There is no greater self-sacrificing love than the love of Christ. He gave his life in love on the Cross so that death would no longer be the eternal end of human life but become instead the doorway to a new form of human life. For those who live a life of selfless love that new form of life will mean the resurrection of the body on the last day. In the meantime, those who have died in love have been taken by Christ, as He says in the Gospel, to be where He is in the Father’s House. Beyond death, our souls dwell in Christ until, on the last day, he reunites our souls with our bodies in a way we cannot grasp but which will restore us to the completeness of our humanity, body and soul, but now alive with God’s own immortal life.

That’s what St. John means when he says that, not only are we already children of God, but that we shall be like God when we see Him face to face. We will gaze upon Christ in the glory of His risen body from our risen bodies.

So, it is right that we celebrate the life of Bob Traynor on this his funeral day – celebrate his love, above all – because in hope we are also celebrating how that love has brought him to eternal life and will eventually lead to his resurrection in the body, along with all who have loved like Christ in this mortal life.

So, death does not annihilate all the good we do and love we give in this life. It would have done had Christ not died for us. But because He has destroyed death’s stranglehold on humanity, we not only survive death in eternity, but every single act of virtue and of love we have performed in this life goes with us. It is imprinted on our souls and, in eternity, will shine forth in splendour.

God’s Providence with every human person is beyond our ken. We cannot know in any detail why He permits one person to suffer one way and another hardly to suffer at all (although we can never tell either when someone is suffering silently behind a smiling face). What we can say is that God only permits evils out of which He intends to draw a greater good. The greatest example of that was the death of His Son on the Cross from which He drew the salvation of humanity itself. St. Paul puts it this way: all things turn out for the good of those whom God loves. Sin brought suffering and death into the world, but Christ’s merciful love transforms them from the inside so that peace and life win out in the end.

Although your hearts grieve at Bob’s passing, and grieved with him in his final suffering, we dare to trust and pray that he is now not only free of suffering but enjoying the glory and beatitude of the company of the blessed. He will now know why the Lord permitted his suffering and will be praising Him for the greater good which His grace has drawn out of it.

Bob has run the race to the finish and has fought the good fight to the end. His passing is a moment of truth not only for him but for all of us, since our time to die will also surely come. The Lord does not want our hearts to be troubled, but to trust in Him, and to do that now and until the day He comes to take us, too, to Himself.

One final thought. Those who have gone before us and are with God are not only not far from us but through Jesus are even closer spiritually than they were in this life. They are praying for us. They are still loving us with a new and sublime love which loses nothing of its erstwhile sweetness and tenderness.

So, Lord, we thank you for the gift of Bob Traynor. We thank you for giving him to Rose and all those he loved and who loved him. We surrender him back to you in trust and hope that you will keep him, shine your face upon him, be gracious to him and grant him peace, until we meet again nevermore to be separated in Your Kingdom of eternal light.