what do I believe? Funeral

Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.  I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

It is in situations like this, and I am sure that there are many situations in our lives similar to this, when the Lord would propose something and ask the same question he asked Martha, do you believe this?

Martha was a very busy person.  She took care of so many things – the house, the household, her family, so many responsibilities, so many things to preoccupy herself, perhaps thinking about others and their well-being above her own.  She is one who could not keep herself still, perhaps for good reasons, perhaps for a thousand reasons.  And then all of sudden she found herself confronting the death of somebody she loved, her brother Lazarus.  It must have been painful for her for she was no longer described the way the gospels described her busy self just as in the gospel of Luke and in another part of the gospel of John.  In this death, everything stood still for Martha, everything became quiet, everything came to a halt like some machine that used up its last drop of fuel.  In this stillness she finally had the time to run out to meet the Lord, to encounter the Lord herself. 

Martha encountered the Lord before, but the Lord was just a guest in her home, somebody she would have to feed, a famous person she would have to look after, a friend perhaps whose practical needs had to be taken care of.  But this time the encounter with the Lord was different. 

Jesus asked her, do you believe this?  For the first time, Martha, busy Martha had to stop and ask herself, what do I believe?  This was a unique encounter with the Lord, an encounter only death can trigger or perhaps a loss, and the question asked by the Lord should not be missed. 

Do you believe this?  Martha must have realized that Jesus was not after her opinion on something or her principles, or the words she lived by.  She must have realized that Jesus was asking for her faith, when she replied to his question saying, “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  Faith became an obedience to a “you” - you are the Christ, you are the Son of God – it became a confident entrustment to the person of Jesus who loved her and gave her hope.  More than affirming then what Jesus can do for her brother, more than affirming that Jesus can raise the dead, Martha instead affirmed her faith in the person of Jesus - you are the Christ, you are the Son of God.  But that is Martha. 

What about us, what is the Lord proposing for me, for you to believe, in the death of a loved one, in the death of a mother?  What do I believe? 

I have come to believe that Jesus is always present in our lives.  It is true when he assured us that he will always be with us until the end of time.  I have to admit before you that it has always been a struggle on my part to believe in an all powerful God, in a God who answers all our prayers, in a God who heals all our ills and drives away all our sufferings.  It has always been a struggle to come to terms with that part of our faith.  But this I have never doubted – God is with us no matter what.  And this is what I told my mother when she was also struggling with unanswered prayers, and grappling with the perennial question which does not have an answer - why do good people suffer.  We may suffer, we will suffer but God is with us.  He may chose not take away our pains but this I know, he shares in our pain. It is a commitment Jesus shown most especially in his sacred heart.  Jesus is mercy.  Mercy is the capacity to identify with the other in his needs.  Jesus is mercy. We are never alone.  We may leave him but he will never leave us.

What do I believe?

I have come to believe that Jesus in the Eucharist is our daily strength.  In the Eucharist we come to know Jesus, we listen to scriptures, we receive him in holy communion and are assured of his presence.  Life had never been smooth sailing for my mother.  It was never easy for her.  Her faith was not enough to take away the mountains that blocked her way.  But she was brave enough to climb those mountains.  She was brave because she had the Eucharist.  As I have often said to the parents of our seminarians, it was not the seminary which inculcated in me the importance of daily mass.  It was my mother, during vacation. 

What do I believe?

I have come to believe that Jesus has given us Mary because he knew firsthand how it was to be cared for by his Mother.  Of all vocations motherhood is most sublime – the creating, nourishing and sustaining, the forming and reforming, the loving and forgiving imitate so closely the work of the Creator.  We all feel safer with our mothers around.  Today is Wednesday, Mother of Perpetual Help.  She would be here in this church this afternoon if she were alive.  But what use is a mirror now if you can see the Mother face to face.  Burying her on a Wednesday is also our way of thanking the Mother of God for being a very important part of her life, our way of entrusting her to the Mother of Christ, repeating with her the last verse of that song she always sung in this church

Mother of Christ, Mother of Christ; this do I ask of thee
when the voyage is o'er, oh stand on the shore, and show him at last to me.

“Yes, Lord.  I have come to believe!”