Today's homily as we gathered at St Joseph to pray
for the bishops, priests, religious sisters and brothers and lay people
who served in our Diocese
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I met Fr Mark James OP for the first time in 1994. I was learning Zulu with the Montebello Dominicans and he arrived for a refresher course.
We were sharing a house with Fr Freoux, a French Oblate who had served in South Africa for 60 years... in just three parishes!
Fr Freoux used to say that once a month he would offer a Mass for his soul out of fear that, once he would die, no one would remember him.
Two things come to my heart from this:
- the conviction he had of the importance of celebrating Masses for the dead. It is a tradition we do not really have in our diocese. We do remember them during November but hardly ever anyone comes to say: “Father, please offer this Mass for my mother or father, as today is the anniversary of her/his passing”. It is interesting because at each and every Mass we remember those who died but we never put in the hearts of the people we serve, the importance of remembering their relatives and friends;
- the second one was the fear of not being remembered by his own religious family or the Church.
Before arriving in South Africa in 1993 I spent a few months in London learning English. I was soon placed in a parish with an Irish parish priest, who had the passion and patience to host foreign priests who needed to learn the language.
On a day like today, for the homily, he took the register of death and spoke about one by one of those who had died that year. It was prayerful and loving. One could see the heart of a shepherd who knew his sheep. On that day I had been asked to celebrate a couple of Masses so I asked him to preach at them because I loved it but there was no way I could do the same.
Thanks to the diocesans and religious I was able to prepare a list of bishops, priests and sisters who served in this diocese in the last 110 years and are now with the Lord. The initital list – I still need to add the Servants of Mary – goes over 200. Men and women. Young and old.
We stand on their lives and service. We continue what they started and did before us.
At the same time, I wished we could go beyond this list. Our Church is not built only on their calls. I wished there was a way to bring the name of – at least – some lay people in the name of many others. I think of people like Violet Zwane who brought the St Anne’s to our diocese or Maduduza Zwane who brought the St Joseph Sodality.
I think of the one who was chairperson at the Cathedral who died during her term of service and who had also helped us identify the present team of ProFuturo coaches.
In one of the outstation of Regina Mundi, the community keep a photo of a lay leader who seems to have been key in their lives.
Maybe we could prepare a list with two people from each parish and a couple from each sodality – just to keep a balance – who we would add to this list in the name of the rest.
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It would be nice if, another year, we take the moment of the homily to briefly share on a biblical passage that touches you at the time of reflecting on the reality of death.
I am not talking about what you preach to others but when you think of your own death.
Paul believed that he might still be alive when the Lord would come:
We can tell you this from the Lord’s own teaching, that we who are still alive for the Lord’s coming will not have any advantage over those who have fallen asleep (1 Thess 5:15)
I don’t think shares the same feeling. Death is a reality also for us. As we preside many people’s funerals, it is important to remember the time will come for us “to be part of this list” too.
Which passage does talk to you? Many people would go for passages regarding the Good Shepherd. Think of Psalm 23:
the Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I shall want
I chose to pray with Psalm 26 because there is an expression I love:
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face
We also say something similar at Mass:
Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy: welcome them into the light of your face.
Seeing God face to face. Isn’t it what John tells us in his first letter:
You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children— which is what we are! (...) My dear friends, we are already God’s children, but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed. We are well aware that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is. (1John 3:1-2)
We shall see him. We will see the one who called us and continues to call us to follow him and serve his people.
We shall see him, the one we celebrate in each Eucharist, the one we preach, the one we witness with our lives, the one we wish with all our hearts to be the centre of our lives: our lives as priests and in the lives of the ones we have been sent to.
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