Rest in Peace

The funeral was today for the little girl who recently died of SIDS.

It was very, very sad day.

I have attended Funeral masses before...several in the past year, all of people who lived a long life, full of faith who died a happy death in close communion with the Lord. While each of these funerals were very sad and hard on the families, there was the component of peace because of the beautiful and long lives these people lived.

However, this was not like those funerals.

To bury a little girl, just five weeks old, to have died so unexpectedly....it was so very very heartbreaking.

The parents brought up the gifts and walked down the aisle in tears. When they reached the priest to hand him the gifts, he gave them to the altar servers and they leaned towards him and he embraced them, wrapping one arm around each of them, drawing them in as they buried their heads in his shoulder and cried. I think everyone in the congregration was in tears at that point. Moms who held babies on their lap held them a little closer at that moment.

The Mass continued, with beautiful solemn music, which captured the spirit of mourning, yet hope.

At the end of Mass, the father took the casket of his little girl in his arms...and carried her to the back of the Church. I will never as long as I live forget the look on his face as he clung to that little casket. Caskets should not be that small. Caskets should be large and heavy, requiring many men to lift them. When a man can take a casket into his arms and carry it by himself, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

The mother walked behind her husband, being consoled by (I think) her mother. She wept, probably living in a surreal moment, wondering how, just five short weeks ago, she held this newborn girl in her arms, and now she was following as she is carried to her grave.

She probably is reliving every moment of the day before her little girl died...it was probably an ordinary day, and no doubt gave no indication that the next day would be probably the most devastating day of her life and will radically reorient every day from here on out.

As I sat holding Michael in my lap, taking this all in...praying for the family, it made me think how this truly is a "valley of tears." This world truly is without hope without Christ. Without Jesus, there is no reunion after death. Without Jesus, these parents would never see their little girl...but because of what Jesus has done for us by conquering death, their reunion awaits them.

Without Jesus, we are alone in our suffering. Suffering is empty and meaningless. Only with Jesus do we have a companion in our suffering. Someone who knows the woes of death, the pain of betrayal, and the agony of physical suffering. In Jesus, God is truly with us in our pain. Only with Jesus, can our suffering bring about redemption. We can unite our suffering to His suffering and trust that our Lord will bring about good from terrible, terrible things. Our God is so powerful, even a tragedy like the death of a little girl can be transformed to bring about life.

The compassion of God, who is with us in our suffering, was demonstrated by that solemn moment during the offering of the gifts when the parents reached Fr. Richard (who lost his own son a few years ago), who is elderly with a white beard, not too unlike many artistic representations of God the Father. The mom and dad reached him and fell into his embrace. And Fr. Richard, standing as a representative for Jesus (priests in Mass stand in persona Christi), took them in his arms and held them, letting them know that they are not alone in their suffering. I am sure that as they were embraced by Fr. Richard, the mom and dad just wanted him to make it all better. They wanted the last few days to be undone. They wanted to just go back to this time last week, when their little girl was starting to coo, and smile, and wiggle her little arms and legs.

But Fr. Richard can't turn back the clock for them, though if he could, he would have. He can just embrace them, pray for them, and remind them of Christ our hope. He can stand as a witness that God can be trusted, even if seems like He is punishing us. Jesus will give meaning to their loss. He will bring their little girl back to life...he will undo the permenance of death.

In fact, he already has.

This little girl is not dead. She is alive. She is not on earth anymore, but she is alive. She is praying for her mom and dad, awaiting their reunion once again.

May God grant her family comfort and peace. May God grant them understanding, and most of all, grant them hope.

Please don't forget to keep them in your prayers.