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