2 Funeral Homilies for Auntie Nene (##46-47)

Our family with some of their cousins (Isaiah & Kailan)

Sat., Nov. 21, 1130am Funeral Mass (Homily #47)

Friday, Nov. 20, 7pm Vigil (Homily #46)



HOMILY #47: Funeral Mass

From Auntie Nene's Earthly Home to Auntie Nene's Heavenly Home

 



At the Vigil last night, we reflected on how the Cole Street Home brought us all together.  It is a home known to all.  In this life, this home – this old home – was heaven on earth.  We saw that for many families present and not present here today, it was a home that was a warm and friendly and welcomed others to a new land.  For those who brought their anxieties and their worries and their fears and concerns, Nene Bacani’s home sheltered you from a dangerous world.  It was a home where the Gospel was made very real day after day.

The Word of God consoled us with Nene’s death.  We heard in the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 25) how Our Lord Jesus Christ will say at the General Judgment when he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, where his kingdom will have no end, where he will separate the sheep from the goats, where all people that have ever existed will be gathered before his awesome judgment seat, “I was hungry and you gave me food.  I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was without a home, and you took me in.  Come blessed are you.  Enter into the HOME prepared for you by my Father and his angels.”

At this Funeral Mass, where we finally commend Nene’s soul to God, let us now move from this earthly realities and earthly cares of our earthly home….and now, dear brothers and sisters, now shift our focus on our heavenly home.  Cole Street was an earthly home that lasted only for a time….a few decades at the most…a mere blink compared to eternity.  All things pass away.  This life is fleeting.  This life this earthly life is not our final home. 

Heaven is our ultimate home!  As we see in the Word of God, it is written in the Psalms, “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life / And I shall dwell in the HOUSE of the Lord --- the House of the Lord – for years to come.”

Let us pray for the soul of Feliciana – Auntie Nene – so that she can go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.  Let us pray for the repose of her soul.  In heaven, we bring our acts of love, our virtue, our real treasures of life…..only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.

Let us keep our eyes focused on heaven.  As we saw in the Word of God proclaimed in the Second Reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans, it is written, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?  Nothing will or should separate that love of God in Christ Jesus.”

We cannot go to heaven without love!!

This agape love—this love that was planted in our souls at Baptism – must be in our souls.  That is why conversion to God is now.  This is why we don’t want to wait until we die before turning to God.  The souls of the just are in the hand of God.  The just seem to be foolish in the world.

 

As I preached last night at the Vigil, what Nene has done for us in this life, let us the living do for her in her next life.  The best act of love we can do for Auntie Nene now is to attend holy Mass.  It is at the Mass where we -- the Church on earth – are united most profoundly to the souls being purified before seeing God face to face, the Church in purgatory.  And it is where the Church on earth is united to the Church in heaven, all in united praise of the Heavenly Father.  Let us have Mass offered for her soul.  And when we receive the Body of Christ in the state of grace and love, let us offer our Holy Communion for the eternal repose of her soul so that she will have a dwelling place in our loving Father’s house.

I mean, can you imagine:  Nene prepared us for our earthly journey in an earthly home.  She was godmother who planted seeds to all of us here today, even generations beyond.  Now, through our prayers – through the Mass which is the highest prayer of the Church – let the Church raise her voice for her and ask God to welcome Nene into the heavenly home.

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; that faith also in me.”

Only Jesus brings a soul to heaven.  No other world religious founders can bring us to heaven.  Only Jesus.  He is the way home to God.  Jesus is not one of the ways home to God.  He is THE way THE truth THE life.  No one comes home to God except through Jesus who is the Christ.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling place…..

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself

Lord Jesus, we pray that you prepare a place for Nene, your servant, who was baptized into you at her baptism.  She was covered with white at her baptism.  She is now covered in white at her funeral.

And we pray, Lord, that just as Nene welcomed us into an earthly home, she will be there with you at the moment of our own death and prepare us for our heavenly home where the Jesus the Good Shepherd leads us to verdant pastures where he gives repose, where there is nothing else, nothing but the Shepherd, that I shall want, heaven where only goodness and kindness follow us, and where we shall dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our eternal life.  Amen.

 



JP Served 1st Sunday Mass

My son served at the 10am Mass today.  The other two servers I presume we're assigned with him did not show up.  JP has served dozens of other Masses but not vested for a Sunday Mass yet.

I write this here for my son's sake.  Perhaps this archive of videos and photos will be of great benefit to him....

...and to the Church.

Parishioners said he was cute.  They said he did a good job.



Thank you, God, for this gift.

Order for the Blessing of the Sick (Homily #45) & Viaticum

I brought Holy Communion to someone on Monday night.  I gave her a small crumb of the Eucharist.  She died on Wednesday morning.

I did not record the homily for this occasion and later encouraged those present to call for a priest.

Citing Catechism (#1524), the Glossary in the Catechism defines Viaticum as "the Eucharist received by a dying person.  It is the spiritual food for one's 'passing over' to the Father from this world.  With Penance and Anointing of the Sick, the reception of Holy Communion as Viaticum constitute  the 'last sacraments' of the Christian."

She received Viaticum.  Thank you, God, for this gift.




 

Car Blessing-- Jesus the Way (Homily #44)



We Must Go Above & Beyond Our Spiritual Duty-- This is Heroic Virtue (Homily #43)



5pm Mass on Sat.

 

 

8:30am Mass

 

12pm Mass

 

Homily #43

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Vacaville, CA

Oct. 31, 2015 - Nov. 1, 2015

 



I.

U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Vincent Capadanno was mobilized to Vietnam in 1967.  One day, in the middle of an intense battle, he saw a hospital corpsman fatally shot on the ground.  Even with injuries to himself, Capadanno ran to help the fallen corpsman.  And in the process of rescuing him, Capadanno himself was shot multiple times… and was killed in action.

Vincent Capadanno was a Catholic priest.  He was the chaplain assigned to the 5^th Marines which he considered his parish.  He is one of five Catholic priestchaplains that have been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor.

While all service members try to fulfill their duty, the Medal of Honor is conferred for a sacrifice that is above and beyond the call of duty.

There is a difference between (a) doing one’s duty versus (b) acting above and beyond the call of duty.  One is not required to exceed one’s duty.  The same difference applies in our own spiritual lives, too.

And this is the first main point of reflection: There is a difference between simply doing one’s spiritual duty versus going above and beyond our spiritual duties.

Fr. Capodanno did not need to lay down his life for the 5^th Marines.  But he did.

In our spiritual lives, we do not just want to do the bare minimum of our holy Christian faith – just out of mere duty.  Rather, we want to go above and beyond the minimum of living our Christian faith.  This is heroic virtue.  We must strive to be spiritual heroes that make great sacrifices for the love of Jesus that may, at times, be costly even to our own lives.

 

II.

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints.  (Yesterday we celebrated the Evening vigil of the Hallowed Ones or Hallow’s Eve.)  Today’s solemnity reminds us that all of us are called to be great saints in God’s kingdom!  Notice I did not say that we are called to be a saint.  You and I are called to be GREAT saints in God’s Kingdom. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus Himself is the model of perfection and holiness of all saints.  He teaches us the Beatitudes from the Sermon (or his homily) on the Mount.

Notice what St. Matthew does.  He presents Jesus as the new Moses, the new Lawgiver.

-         Just as Moses went up a mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, Jesus “went up the mountain” in the Sermon on the Mount.

-         Then, just as a teacher sits with authority, Jesus “sat down” to teach with authority.

-         And just as the Ten Commandments are a series of teachings of the Law, Jesus gives us the New Law through the 8 beatitudes – or 8 blessings – for us, His disciples.

And just we are called to do our duty and keep the Ten Commandments, Christians in the New Law of Christ are called to go above and beyond the call of duty and even exceed the Ten Commandments.  We don’t want to do the bare minimum.  Again, we are called to be great saints.

We hear people in our culture say, “I’m a nice person.  I don’t kill.  I don’t do drugs.  I don’t do this or I don’t do that.”  The Christian reply to this is, “Okay, if you don’t kill or steal or do this or that, then, what do you do?

Christ through the Beatitudes show us how to be saints, not just nice people that don’t kill or don’t do this or don’t do that.  Blessed are the humble, those who pursue righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers, etc. 

St. Augustine said that the Beatitudes are the (quote) “perfect standard of the Christian life” (end quote).  The Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church called Lumen Gentium, taught that “all in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it, are called to holiness” (LG 39).  This is called the “Universal Call to Holiness.”  Everyone, not just priests and nuns, is called to be a saint.

III.

But we cannot become holy without God.  We need the Seven Sacraments of the holy Church.  The first of these signs or sacraments starts with baptism.  This is the meaning of the white robes that we heard in the First Reading.  It is written in the Word of God from the Book of Revelation, “Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, ‘Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?  …  He said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb”.

Our robes are our souls, and our souls are made white, made pure in the Sacrament of Baptism.  At the Rite of Baptism, we are called to keep the white robe of our souls unstained until we see God at the end of our lives.  In the Second Reading, St. John writes, “Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he – God – is pure.”

Two other sacraments that we should receive regularly are the Sacraments of Holy Eucharist – the Mass – and the Sacrament of Reconciliation – going to Confession.  We go to Confession when we need to have the robes of our souls stained with sin washed away by the Blood of Jesus.   

And just as Christ kept the Law perfectly yet went above and beyond the Old Law, we too in our spiritual lives should go above and beyond the bare minimum of living the fullness of our holy Catholic faith.

Participating at Sunday Mass every week (and Holy Days of Obligation) is just the bare minimum of a dynamic Catholic life.  Going to Confession once a year is a minimum duty.  Let us go to Mass and Confession more frequently than the bare minimum.

IV.

Finally, our beloved Pope Francis met with some bishops in Rome for a Synod on the Family.  There, the Holy Father declared as saints the first canonized married couple, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux.  Saints Louis and Zellie show us that married people can and should become saints in their ordinary day-to-day family life.  (Zellie died of breast cancer at age 45, and Louie lived well into his 90s raising girls by himself.)  They were ordinary people living extraordinary or heroic lives of faith. 

In our own time where the Church is experiencing distress and tribulation, Catholic families must not become average families, but rather heroic families.  Christian family life must go above and beyond the bare minimum and practice a deeper and more fervent sacramental life if its spiritual life is to survive and grow.  For us who are married, let us not just look to saints that are married, like Louis and Zellie, but let us also ask for their help, their intercession (just like if I ask you to pray for me).

We may not receive the Medal of Honor like Fr. Vincent, but we should still live a heroic virtuous life, like the many saints that have gone before us.  So, in summary:

1.)  First, let us go above and beyond the minimum duties of our faith.

2.)  Second, Jesus the model of all saints, gives us the Seven Sacraments to become GREAT saints.

3.)  Third, in our time, Catholic families must become heroic families today.

May Mary, the mother and exemplar of all the saints, watch us, so that we will one day join the multitude of saints in heaven, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue, and cry out in a loud voice with the angels, “Amen.  Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power and might be to our God forever and ever.  Amen.”