Translate

Saturday, December 22, 2018

A NEW AND IMPROVED SUICIDE FUNERAL HOMILY

A modest, sober Requiem from 1914, so it has to be pre-Vatican II and perfect, no?


Requiem Mass for Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at St. Catherine's Cathedral, St. Petersburg, published in a Russian newspaper (1914)

Those who want a return to the pre-Vatican II mentality, desire no homilies at a Requiem. For my part, I just want post-Vatican II liturgical laws followed like no eulogies at Mass.

But another pre-Vatican II law was no Requiem Mass for someone who committed sucide. How many who read this blog would advocate for this today?  May those who are older than me can tell me if a suicide victim could still receive a Catholic commital service (graveside) in pre-Vatican II times if a Requeim was not allowed?

But with those issues raised, here is another sucide homily posted by the mother of the young man who committed suicide. Does the priest who gave it hit the ball out of the park?




My Son Committed Suicide: Here’s the Homily from his Funeral


Everyone is talking about a “bad” homily given at a funeral in Detroit. I have my opinions about that but instead of sharing them, I am going to share the homily from my son’s funeral. Anthony died by suicide on March 8, 2017.
Homily for the Funeral Mass of Anthony Gallegos, by Father Jonathan Raia
St. William Catholic Church, Round Rock, Texas
March 17, 2017
I think the question that most often is in our hearts and often on our lips as well, when we’re confronted with the death of our loved ones, especially a death as senseless as Anthony’s, is the question “why?”.
I know it was certainly the question that was on my heart as I stood with the family a little over a week ago in the garage, praying over Anthony’s body.
We know that Anthony had struggled with depression for years, as his journal attests, and talking to Ariana and Leti and the family, we know that in the last hours of his life apparently there was really a fierce battle going on inside Anthony, with the darkness that he described that he felt inside of him.
Knowing that, though, really doesn’t make it any easier to deal with his death. That question of “why?” is still on our lips and still in our hearts.
Why?
What our faith does not try to do is answer that question. Let’s make that really clear.
We joked even the night that Anthony died about the well-meaning but stupid things that people sometimes say to people who are grieving. Things like “God took him,” or that “it was just his time”, or something like that. God didn’t take Anthony because he needed him. There’s not a bat problem in heaven. (There was a bat flying around at the Vigil last night.)
But it wasn’t his time.
It was not his time. And this wasn’t the way that the Lord wanted him to go. I think we have to say that.
So our faith does not try to answer for us the question of “why?”. The answer that our Christian faith does give to us, the only answer, is the answer that is a Person.
It’s the Person of Jesus Christ, God who became man for our salvation. God who suffered and died to free every single one of us from death. It’s Jesus, the answer, who when he was on the cross, cried out “My God, My God, why? Why have you forsaken me?”. See, in Jesus, God has said to each and every one of us, “I understand what that ‘why?’ feels like. I know it because I felt it too.”
The one request that Leticia had for me regarding this homily (she’s not afraid to give instructions to priests! I know her, she’s not shy), the one request that she had for me was that I proclaim to every one of you that beautiful truth that Noe, who did our second reading, who is such a beloved spiritual father and teacher in this family here at St. William’s, that beautiful little saying that Noe loves to preach, “God loves you more than you think He does.” God loves you more than you think He does. That was what Leti said: “Tell them that.” So, God loves you more than you think He does.
Wherever you are in your own journey of faith, in your relationship with God and relationship with the Church, God loves you today, now. More than you think He does. Much, much more.
So where was God in Anthony’s final days, in his final moments here on earth? Jesus was battling inside of him. Jesus was battling inside of him, giving him the resolve to marry Ariana in the Church, to be a good father to Aaliyah and Camryn. To keep his faith at the center of his life. He wrote those things down. Jesus was right there and although it might seem to us today that the darkness won that battle inside of Anthony, we are here in this church this morning because we believe that the war has in fact already been won.
St. John proclaims to us, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
See, the symbols right now that surround Anthony’s body—the Paschal candle, the pall—remind us that right over there in that font, seven years ago, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, came to dwell in Anthony’s heart. I had the great privilege to baptize him, along with Dan, and Gabe, and Felicity.
And on that night, God the Father looked at Anthony and said, “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved son.” The same words that we just heard the Father say to Jesus at the Transfiguration. On that day of his baptism, Anthony received the gift of faith, and Jesus promised him a share in his own victory over death. We are here today to beg the Lord Jesus to remember that promise.
The readings that the family chose are actually the readings that we just listened to on Sunday, the first time that they were here together as a family in this church after Anthony’s death. Those were the readings that we heard, and we heard them again this morning.
So at the beginning of Lent, every year on the Second Sunday of Lent, the Church, after reminding us on the First Sunday that Jesus was tempted, that he battled with the devil, because we all have to, on the Second Sunday, the Church gives us this strange and wonderful gospel about the Transfiguration.
See, Jesus knew that he was going to suffer and die. He knew how that experience would devastate his friends, how it would shake their faith to its core. So on the way to his death, Jesus took his three closest friends up the mountain and gave them a gift. He let them see just for a moment who he really is.
The Church has always understood that in that moment, in revealing the glory of who he is as the eternal Son of God, to those three chosen disciples, Jesus was preparing them. He was preparing their hearts to watch him be mocked, and crowned with thorns and scourged, and executed as a criminal. In the depths of that darkness on Mt. Calvary, he wanted them to remember the light on Mt. Tabor. How the glory of his Father’s love for him so filled him that it made him shine like the sun. He wanted them to remember that as they watched him die, so that they could trust that maybe even on that cross, Jesus was still God’s beloved son.
But see, the story doesn’t end with the cross. We know that none of what we are doing here today would make any sense if it ended there. The reason that we are here today is that Jesus rose from the dead. Death no longer has any power over him. And in his Church, through baptism, Jesus has shared that victory with us—his victory over death.
If we allow Jesus to love us, to save us from our sins, and we give our lives to him and live in him, then we too can live forever. That’s the hope that we have today for Anthony. That’s the hope that the Church gives to each one of us.
So what does our faith do for us in a time like this? To that question of “why?”, to the pain and the confusion and the sadness and the anger and the fear and the doubt in our hearts, Jesus says, “I understand. I know. I know what that feels like.”
And it’s actually there that he’s closest to us. It’s there that he’s closest to us. Where maybe we feel farthest away from him, in fact, it’s there that he’s closest to us, if we have the eyes to see it.
You know, sometimes our Protestant brothers and sisters ask, “Why do you Catholics always have Jesus on the cross? He’s risen from the dead.” That’s why. We keep the image of Jesus crucified always before us so that we will never forget that he understands what it’s like.
But it’s not simply that. It’s not just that Jesus meets us in that why. He does something more. Just as he did for Peter and James and John on Mt. Tabor, Jesus offers to us a glimpse of the end game, where this is all headed.
We know that the Jesus on the cross, the Jesus who suffers still with us and in us is also the Jesus who lives forever in heaven with the Father, and who has promised to take us to be with him. That’s our hope. Remember at the end of that gospel we just listened to, Jesus tells the disciples to keep the vision to themselves until he is raised from the dead. See, he wanted them to go and give strength to his followers, so that they can know that God knew what He was doing. That the victory was won already when Jesus was there on the cross.
He meant for them to console each other in their trials, in their own experiences of Calvary. To console each other with the knowledge that God can use even this for my good, for my salvation. Because he loves you more than you think He does.
St. Paul understood this. That’s why in the second reading we heard, he tells his disciple Timothy, “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”
That strength is the light of faith that God gives to each one of us at baptism. It is the light that shines from Jesus on Mt. Tabor, the light that shines from his wounded hands and feet and side, wounds that he still has even in his glorified body. It’s the light that God has shown to Anthony’s family this past week, through the beauty of this community and faith.
And that light is what we now have to share with Anthony by our prayers. See, we’re also here today because we can do something for him. We believe that death doesn’t end the bonds that are formed in this life, because love is stronger than death, and so love remains. You and I have a job to do. We commend Anthony to God because we know that God loves him, more than any of us ever could.
Pope Benedict [in his encyclical Spe Salvi] had a beautiful image that, in praying for the souls of the dead, the souls in purgatory, we are asking God to put the pieces of their lives back together again. We here today are asking God to put the pieces of Anthony’s life back together again. We pray that Jesus’ gaze of love and the love of his heart will purify Anthony’s heart, to love the way that he was made to love. We pray that the holy pain of that gaze of Jesus’ eyes and the love of his heart would cleanse him and really make him truly himself. That’s what purgatory is all about: becoming who we truly are in the love of Jesus that purifies us.
So brothers and sisters, God truly loves you more than you think He does. Jesus came so that you and I would know that love. And even through his Church, Jesus wants to give us the strength to live every moment with the hope that only comes from knowing that Jesus has risen from the dead, that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. As we pray that that light will shine upon Anthony and bring him into glory, we pray also that we will live in that same light. We pray that we can know the hope of that light in the trials of our lives, so that we can come to live one day in that same glory.
Amen.

15 comments:

TJM said...

Absolutely beautiful and profound. Perhaps the fact that the priest knew the family well and the situation helped him focus on what needed to be said. If a homily is to be given in a suicide situation, this homily is a model of Christian charity

John Nolan said...

Who may be given a Christian burial is a matter for Canon Law. The 1983 Code, unlike that of 1917, does not specifically mention suicides (or, for that matter, those who are killed in a duel). This does not imply that the Church approves of either practice. But giving a suicide the benefit of the doubt as to his mental state when he perpetrated the act, and the possibility of repentance 'inter pontem et fontem', does not necessarily cause a scandal to the faithful. However, with suicides, particularly among the young, on the increase in post-Christian society, the Church needs to reiterate her teaching on the objective gravity of the sin.

Some legislations have legitimized 'assisted suicide' or voluntary euthanasia. It is a precondition that the one killed is of sound mind, so were the Church to allow Christian burial in this case it would indeed be scandalous and is unlikely to be allowed. By denying Christian burial to a public and manifest sinner, the Church is not pre-empting God's mercy; her aim, as already stated, is to ensure that no scandal is caused to the faithful.

This has nothing to do with the liturgy used. I am of the opinion that the Order of Christian Funerals, which encapsulates the post-V2 'reform' is thoroughly unsatisfactory. If its recommendations for music are followed, it would be impossible to have anything resembling a Requiem Mass using the Novus Ordo.

TJM said...

John Nolan,

You make an excellent point on suicide: one freely elected and another the result of a serious mental disorder. I cannot imagine why one would elect suicide because modern medicine in the overwhelming number of cases can mitigate pain and suffering.

rcg said...

I will embarrass myself once again by stating a couple of points that may be both obvious and entirely wrong. First, the suicide of a mentally ill person is not the same as the suicide of a disgraced or vanquished person as happened a previous century. There was a time when it was a form of logic for a person to kill themselves subsequent to a failure of some sort. But the dark, unfathomable despair of a sick mind does not allow the same paths of reason searching for salvation. So the same eulogy for the wife of Brutus would be inappropriate for the deceased victim of clinical depression. This is, in my opinion, the best reason to not give a homily at all. After all, the Requiem Mass is not really about the person in the casket, nor is it to provide solace directly to the family of the deceased. This leads to my second point. The homily most certainly is not to provide a platform for the priest to show off his deductive reasoning or forensic abilities. I am under the impression that it is an expression of humility and plea for mercy. It is the last contributions of reason to our earthly journey and a final handover to Faith. It is the confession that we simply don’t know how we will be judged but give hope to a merciful outcome.

We are recently reminded that we should not presume any specific judgement on the deceased. The Mass could have been for a cardinal dying a natural death at an advanced age and heretofore a safe bet for entry into Heaven. This is also a good reason for ad orientem, as an act of humility.

Anonymous said...

"After all, the Requiem Mass is not really about the person in the casket, nor is it to provide solace directly to the family of the deceased.

Yes, along with praying for the deceased, a primary end of the funeral mass is to provide solace directly to the family of the deceased.

From the introduction to "The Order of Christian Funerals, 1969":

"The Church, therefore, offers the eucharistic sacrifice of Christ's Passion for the dead and pours forth prayers and petitions for them. Because of the communion of all Christ's members with each other, all of this brings spiritual aid to the dead and the consolation of hope to the living."

From the Rite - the blessing at the end of the Vigil:

"May the love of God and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ
bless and console us
and gently wipe every tear from our eyes:
in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."



rcg said...

Anonymous @ 3:24, yes, that is why I used the word 'directly'. I thought about using 'solely'. I left that sentence in to stoke this point because I think people suffer from the conceit that a Mass, even the Requiem, is about them, their family, or the deceased. It is my understanding that it is about all of us and is a reminder that we all face the same judgement.

John Nolan said...

Anonymous is correct as far as the OCF is concerned, but it is the OCF which is the problem here. Under cover of liturgical reform, the theology regarding the rites for the dead was changed, and the new rites reflect this. It is probably the single most serious disruption since the Council. The resulting disjunct between the lex orandi and lex credendi has given rise to numerous abuses.

Last week I attended a modern Catholic funeral. There were no obvious abuses; the priest (in violet vestments) read the English Mass in a clear and dignified manner; there were the usual four hymns, a couple of solos from a quite decent soprano, some nice organ music; the homily was perhaps too eulogistic but otherwise unremarkable; the actual eulogy was delivered by a grandson, for which he was given a round of applause.

Afterwards everyone agreed that it had been 'a nice send-off'. No doubt it was what she wanted and expected. But should 'a nice send-off' be the criterion for a Catholic funeral?

In the past few years I have been asked to sing at funerals of people I didn't know, because they had asked for the Old Rite and it is a question of 'have Liber, will travel'. It is an entirely different experience, and I would suggest a more authentically Catholic one.

John Nolan said...

The 1917 Canon denying Christian burial to suicides was often interpreted leniently. In November 1920, during the height of the Irish 'troubles', the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence McSwiney, died in Brixton prison (London) after a hunger strike. This was positive and direct suicide.

His funeral, in St George's Catholic Cathedral, Southwark, was done with great ceremony and his body was then taken to Ireland to be interred with all ecclesiastical honours. You can see a newsreel excerpt on Youtube.

This may be a partial answer to Fr Allan's query about whether suicides were allowed burial from the Church before Vatican II.

TJM said...

John Nolan,

What a marvelous service you are performing. One question: are you singing the chants of the Requiem exclusively for the EF or are you also singing them for the OF? Not too many years ago, I attended a funeral Mass for a family friend, and although the Mass was the OF, all of the chants from the Requiem were sung in Latin from the Missa Pro Defunctis. The parish priest, although not a supporter of the EF, generously did not allow his preferences to over-ride the express wishes of the family of the deceased.

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

It seems to me prior to Vatican II the problem of suicide was considered a spiritual problem, not a mental or physical one. Before Vat II suicide was viewed as a failure of Faith, Hope and Charity; now it's viewed simply as a physical problem, a psychological problem. It is a clear example of the denial of the supernatural within Church. I think the modernists/rationalists within the Church scoffed at the supernatural in general, and have now made things that are supernaturally evil just superstitions, much to the peril of those who believe them.

This is a significant shift that explains the problem in a blameless sort of way, a natural rather than a spiritual problem, and presumes the person is helpless to battle the temptation. And we assume they actually had a mental illness, instead of perhaps only a small percentage "knows not what they do." If it was a spiritual problem I can only say the person is expected to battle such temptations against life, and if they don't, then Satan has destroyed them.

So then, why are we held accountable for giving in to ANY strong temptation? Why be guilty of the mortal sin of adultery if you believe you married the wrong person but have now met your "soul mate"? How about when a poor person who robs a bank because they will become homeless next month if they don't, and their kids will have to go into foster care? What is my guess? These modernists would say they are not, he

This wrong teaching about suicide is a subtle lie, and replaces the Word of God with mere human precepts. We should tell people to try to find out if their temptation to suicide is spiritual or due to illness so they may realize they may be able to fight for their own lives and avoid hell.

I think it might be very beneficial to people in the pews to know their depression may be a spiritual problem and it's important to outright and strongly denounce the mental suggestions to kill oneself so to overcome Satan and allow God to triumph. When priests do not clearly give a spiritual remedy they fail as guardians of souls.

God bless,
Bee

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

Sorry for the omission in my last comment. Rather than "What is my guess? These modernists would say they are not guilty, he..."

The sentence was supposed to read:

"What is my guess? These modernists would say they are not guilty of mortal sin, and hell is probably empty."

God bless.
Bee

TJM said...

Bee,

Hell is empty other than Hitler and fake catholics like Pelosi

John Nolan said...

TJM

The 1974 Graduale Romanum, which governs the Novus Ordo, has a very wide choice of chants for the Missa pro Defunctis, although these do not include the Sequence and the responsory 'Libera me Domine de morte aeterna' which is replaced by a different chant taken from Matins: 'Libera me Domine de viis inferni'. I did once sing the Mass chants from the Liber Usualis at a Novus Ordo Requiem Mass which was otherwise in English.

A priest can hardly object to this, although if he were very punctilious he might insist on the Alleluia rather than the Tract outside of Lent!

But generally speaking we sing for the Old Rite. On occasion we have been asked to wear choir dress and sing in the sanctuary, which is quite fitting for a male chant schola, but certainly not for a mixed 'music group'!

TJM said...

John Nolan,

Thanks for the information. So the Dies Irae is suppressed for the Novus Ordo, or is that too broad an assumption? That particular chant is hauntingly beautiful and one of my favorites.

John Nolan said...

TJM

The Dies Irae is the most famous chant ever written, but is a comparatively late addition to the Requiem Mass; it was not composed until the 13th century. In fact all the Sequences are late additions (late being comparative - the main corpus of Gregorian chant was complete by the end of the first millennium).

There is no reason why the Dies Irae should not be sung for the Novus Ordo, and it not uncommonly is (for example at All Souls); this is because the rite itself allows a plethora of options, both traditional and modern.