for Pat at Saint Andrew's

 

Good morning. Though Patricia Violet Bernett would expect the rector to officiate her service, it’s summer, even priests need time to rest, and Father Rian is away. 

But not seeing myself as a stranger here, my name is Tom, I grew up a child of this parish from birth in 1935, baptized and confirmed here, acolyte, member of the youth group throughout my teens. In the early 1950s, with Father Tom Byrne, the bishop asked my family and several other families who lived in The Cove to establish a new parish on the other side of town, and when I came home from college Spring 1955 I found myself a member of Holy Nativity. Where now, in retirement, I help the rector as needed, and manage the adult Sunday School class. 

So, apologies for the rector’s absence, but take comfort: the priest helping you celebrate Pat’s life has known and loved St Andrew’s Church lifelong, more than 85 years.

I did not know Pat, but I do know the Lord Jesus, beloved Savior and God whose Word cannot be broken, whose promise came true for Pat, Jesus coming at the end of her earthly time here to take her to himself, that where he is, there she may be also.

 

Because as we heard, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” John’s NT Greek word is μονή, an abode, a house, a home, rooms, a lodging, a dwelling place - traditional English Bibles have “mansions”, which seems especially accommodating and welcoming. 

Pat lived long and her history tells an extraordinary life before Jesus came to keep that promise. Married in England when she was 19, Pat came to America as a war bride, she and Roy must have been beautiful young newlyweds, head over heels in love! And, my! the places they lived around the world! This morning she will rest in the space with Roy, in the garden with her daughter Colleen. It’s a quiet and lovely garden, intimate, close, that brings to mind Thornton Wilder’s play "Our Town", Act III, the cemetery scene at the end: Emily with friends and loved ones exchanging greetings and a bit of gossip, catching up on Time as they live into the mystery of Eternity. [Who knows what our loving God has in mind for us!]

 

Some of my friends are out there in your memorial garden, and in rectors’ absences I myself have buried several there over the years. It’s a place of peace and love, and Easter. 

In fact, our theology says the liturgy for the dead IS an Easter liturgy, finds all its meaning in the resurrection, because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too shall be raised. The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything  else in all creation ill be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord".

So, that’s why we are here this morning. 

And for my part, I’m delighted that Pat, or whoever selected this morning’s music, chose hymns that indeed make our service characterized by joy. Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! And so shall we be raised in glory, alleluia!