Souvenir de Sr. Jeanne d'Arc Brunelle, CSC, mardi, 22 novembre 2016– Words of Remembrance of Sr. Jeanne d'Arc Brunelle, CSC, Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Mon souvenir de ma grande-tante, Sr. Jeanne d'Arc Brunelle, CSC, donnée le mardi 22 novembre 2016, lors de la veille de ses funérailles au Pavillon Saint-Joseph, l'infirmerie des Sœurs de Sainte-Croix à Montréal (Québec), Canada

My words of remembrance of my great-aunt, Sr. Jeanne d'Arc Brunelle, CSC, given last evening, Tuesday, November 22, 2016, during the vigil prayer service at Pavillon Saint-Joseph, the infirmary of the Sisters of Holy Cross in Montreal, QC, Canada:

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Chères sœurs, religieuses de la Congrégation de Sainte-Croix, et aux membres de notre famille étendue qui sont présents dans l’Esprit : s’il vous plaît me laisser commencer cette petite réflexion sur la vie de notre Sœur, tante, et grande-tante Jeanne d’Arc Brunelle, aussi dite Sœur Marie-de-Saint-Roger-de-la-Croix, avec un mot de remerciement. Durant ces derniers jours de sa vie terrestre, vous avez bien reconforté, veillé sur, et prié pour notre Sr. Jeanne d’Arc. Étant le petit neveu de Jeanne d’Arc et doctorant actuellement à Paris, j’ai éte durant ces derniers jours en communication régulière avec la Sr. Lucie Germain, CSC, dont je suis particulièrement reconnaissant et qui a gardé notre famille au courant de Jeanne d'Arc au jour le jour.

About a week ago, my mother Carol Schmidt and uncle Roger Salt traveled from Edmonton, Alberta, to be with our Aunt Jeanne in the last days of her earthly life. Although neither Carol nor Roger are able to be with us in person today, they are with us in spirit and in prayer. While they were here at Pavillon Saint-Joseph, they were able to remember and celebrate the life of another family member and Holy Cross Sister of this community, Sr. Alberta Pilon, CSC, and to be with our relatives from Lafontaine, Ontario, the hometown of Srs. Jeanne and Alberta, all the way to Edmonton, at Sr. Alberta's funeral Mass.

Nous reconnaissons que ces derniers jours ont été difficiles, exceptionnellement même pour une communauté telle que celle-ci où l'âge, l'infirmité, et les décès sont des réalités quotidiennes. J’empathise avec, j’honore, et je partage votre tristesse par rapport au décès de la Sr. Jeanne d'Arc et après les plusieurs décès récents dans cette communauté du Pavillon Saint-Joseph, et je prie pour vous.

Mais, bien que nous soyons attristés, sœurs et frères, notre tristesse n’est-elle pas peut-être amoindrie en ayant connus la joie que notre chère Sr. Jeanne d’Arc a apportée à nos vies, notre communauté, nos familles, et notre monde? Aunt Jeanne’s life is all but impossible to sum up in one word, but if I were to try to capture her life, her spirit, and her example of religious life and Christian faith and love that is a model for us all, that word would be “joy.”

The first time I remember meeting Aunt Jeanne was when I was 12 years old. Aunt Jeanne lived at the time in the Holy Cross convent in Cornwall. I quickly became acquainted with Aunt Jeanne’s joyful and welcoming character, and with the place on the outside of the 2nd Street Cornwall convent house where group photos would be taken, always with somebody positioned to hide the large electrical outlet on the house from the camera exposure... Try as the Sisters of Holy Cross might to hide that electrical outlet, it was impossible for Aunt Jeanne to hide her joy and energy that I am convinced were from God more than from any human source or outlet!

La petite publication francophone de la région de Lafontaine et de la Baie Géorgienne, savons-nous peut-être, s’appelle « Le goût de vivre ». Notre sœur Jeanne d’Arc avait bien ce goût de vivre en abondance, et elle n'avait peur de rien ni de personne. Dans un monde qui paraît de plus en plus marqué par la peur, la division, la violence et l'exclusion, notre Sr. Jeanne fut naturellement un exemple jaillissant de foi, d'unité, d'espoir, de charité, d'humilité et surtout de joie. Toujours l’une de mes plus grandes inspirations dans la vie religieuse (je suis Basilien, bien que j'ais aussi dans l'âme un peu de Sainte-Croix), dans mon enseignement, mes études et mes voyages à travers le monde, la Sr. Jeanne a enseigné à Lafontaine et à Cornwall et plusieurs années durant ses « vacances » d’été, notamment dans quelques pays de l’Afrique [*Zaire at the time, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, and Fiji in the South Pacific... En ce temps le Zaïre, actuellement la République démocratique du Congo, Upper Volta, actuellement le Burkina Faso, et le Fidji dans le Pacifique du Sud].

Quand je suis né, notre Sr. Jeanne avait vécu déjà presque la moitié de ses soixante-quatorze ans de vie religieuse. À l’âge où la plupart des personnes commencent à planifier leur retraite, Sr. Jeanne est partie enseigner dans un collège de filles en Haïti, pays à l'époque sous l'épouvantable dictateur Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier. Ceci a profondément inquiété le père de Jeanne, Roger Brunelle. En plus, Sr. Jeanne et sa communauté cachaient en Haïti des dissidents contre Duvalier, et alors, de ce que je comprends, les sœurs de là ont dû être sorties d'Haïti parce qu'elles étaient menacées de mort aux mains des paramilitaires. Notre Sr. Jeanne n'a raconté cet histoire qu'à peu de personnes, même à sa famille et à d'autres religieuses de Sainte-Croix.

Si on n’aimait pas Sr. Jeanne d'Arc (je ne peux pas imaginer comment il serait possible de ne pas l'aimer), au moins on la respectait. À Cornwall,  jeune religieuse à l'époque, elle était respectée et même protégée par les gangsters qu'elle enseignait, avant et après qu'ils sachent qu’elle était une religieuse! Et, vers la fin de sa vie remarquable, rendue douleureuse par le cancer entre autres infirmités, Sr. Jeanne a humblement laissé derrière elle ces merveilleuses aventures pour habiter ici au Pavillon Saint-Joseph, où elle aida à soigner les Sœurs en pire état de santé qu’elle.

Aunt Jeanne was afraid of nothing and nobody, from the world’s worst dictators to the bikers who respected and even protected her, before and after they knew she was a sister, in a classroom in Cornwall! She was always among the first to welcome, as she did me, both on my way to (accompanied by Srs. Rachel Lavoie and Cécile Bouvier, CSC, of blessed memory) and back through Montreal on the bookends of my undergraduate exchange year in Lille, France, in 2001-2002. On my return from France, my flight was extremely late into Montreal. No matter, Aunt Jeanne waited joyfully and patiently for me, window shopping (but remaining faithful to her vow of poverty), for all of fifteen minutes of conversation and a quick coffee before I was to board my connecting flight.

Aunt Jeanne will be remembered as a messenger – dare I say, an apostle – of God's joy and lively Spirit. For all our extraordinary memories of our Sister and (great)-aunt, may we recognize above all that her life and example are God's work through her; God’s continued work through us, to bring us all to the eternal life we now pray Aunt Jeanne is inheriting. May she rest now in the peace of our merciful Lord, hearing the words promised by Christ himself in our Holy Scriptures: “Well done, good and faithful servant... Enter now into the Kingdom prepared by my Father.”

Que notre Sr. Jeanne d’Arc Brunelle repose en la paix de notre Seigneur miséricordieux. Qu'elle rejoigne là ses bien-aimé(e)s: Sa sœur, ma grand-mère Simone Salt (née Brunelle), son beau-frère Frank Salt, ses parents Alida (Desroches) et Roger Brunelle, sa cousine la Sr. Alberta Pilon, CSC, Saint André Bessette et le Bienheureux Basile Moreau, tous et toutes les sœurs, frères, et pères de Sainte-Croix. Et  que notre Sr. Jeanne d’Arc entende la promesse de vie et de joie éternelle de Jésus-Christ à ses fidèles dès notre sainte Écriture : « Très bien, serviteur bonne et fidèle... Entrez maintenant dans le Royaume préparé par mon Père ».

Homily for Sunday, 2 August 2015

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

Have any of us ever considered the questions the people ask of Moses and Aaron in Exodus, our first reading, and of Jesus in John’s Gospel from which we hear today?

When God gives the people in the desert in Exodus a strange dew-like substance to eat, they ask “What is this?” When the crowds find Jesus in Capernaum after the multiplication of the loaves and fish, they ask, as if surprised that Jesus has arrived there before them, “Rabbi, when did you get here”? Jesus invites the people who were fed by the loaves and fish to work not “for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” The people wonder what Jesus might mean by this; what kind of work Jesus might expect of them.

What exactly is this “food that endures for eternal life”? The people ask, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Jesus’ answer to them is simple: Believe in him; “believe in the one [God] has sent.” But do the people despair of ever meeting the demands of faith they feel Jesus is placing on them? How could they ever match the miracle they had just witnessed of the multiplication of the loaves and fish? And so the people ask Jesus another question, to deflect the spotlight away from the weakness of their faith and back onto Jesus. They ask no longer “what can we do” but “what sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do”?

But before we criticize the people in Exodus for not being more grateful to God for feeding them with manna, or before we fault those who follow Jesus for seeking another sign; for their weak faith, might we try to empathize with their experience? Where does their experience; where do their questions resonate with ours as people of faith?

“What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? In one sense, we know the answers to these questions. “What is this”? Here in our Eucharistic celebration we are not given to eat and drink strange food that we have never seen before, as the people were when God gave them manna in the desert. We clearly see, touch, and taste bread and wine that are brought to the altar by our community of faith to become the Body and Blood of Christ. And so there is no question for us of, “What is this”?

“Rabbi, when did you get here”? Again, we know the answer to this question: Jesus Christ is and will forever be here with us. Jesus is really and truly present in our Eucharist, and also in each and every one of us; in our relationships; in our works of love and kindness; justice and peace; in our care for all of creation. Jesus is present in making holy; consecrating not only bread and wine here before us but all of us gathered here. Jesus is present in making our entire Church more and more, in the words of our Eucharistic Prayer, “one Body, one Spirit in Christ.” And so there is no question of, “Rabbi, when did you get here”? Christ is here, with and in us, now and forever.

Yet how many of us experience times in which we ask: “Where is God in this”? These experiences may be personal illness in mind, body, or spirit, or the illness or death of a loved one. Many of us, in our wider communities and some right here in our parish, experience poverty; hunger; unemployment or underemployment. How many of us find it difficult to pray from time to time, as if God is at a distance; not readily answering our prayers? How many of us have perhaps had a bad experience with somebody in our Church; somebody in leadership in our Church? Perhaps the onslaught of tragedy; of violence; of war; of injustice in our daily news is enough to lead us to ask, “Where is God in this”?

And if we are asking where God is in our lives; in our world, then are we not asking a question very similar to the question the people of Israel asked in the Egyptian desert, or the question the crowds asked Jesus: “What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? 

These questions can then lead us to ask a question like what the crowds ask Jesus next in John’s Gospel: “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Like the crowds in Jesus’ time, we may not know where to start “to accomplish the works of God.” For those among us who have suffered, who have even experienced despair, can suffering; despair; even the weight of evil in our world not make us seem powerless? Jesus’ answer to what we can “do to accomplish the works of God,” “believe in the one whom [God] has sent,” may seem unhelpful to us in these situations.

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? To show in words and especially actions that we “believe in” Jesus, “the one whom [God] has sent,” is at the core of our faith. Jesus calls us all to believe in him and to show our belief in him by the way we live. But how do we do this if we genuinely have little materially or spiritually to offer? What if we have the resources but are unsure who is most in need; where or to whom best to direct them?

It is not in and of itself wrong for us to ask the next question the crowds ask Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do”? But today Jesus returns our question with a question, whether we are rich or poor; whether our faith is strong or weak: Not what can I do, but what can you do with what God has given you?

What can we do? How has God gifted all of us “to accomplish the works of God? We may not have received much in order “to accomplish the works of God.”  But if we are baptized into Christ; if we have received Christ in our Eucharist, we are all called “to accomplish the works of God.”

Within the last week I have witnessed many examples from this very faith community of accomplishing “the works of God.” We Basilians and many beyond our order continue to grieve the sudden loss of our brother Fr. Joe Lanzalaco, a man who authentically accomplished “the works of God” in this life. Fr. Joe brought people; Christian community together by his presence; his cheerfulness; his depth of faith. Many of us, from Bishops  Matano and Clark to the homeless of House of Mercy, who could offer almost nothing but their presence, joined together to worship; to remember Fr. Joe at his funeral. Many more of us offered ministry during the funeral Mass; food and drink before and after… If nothing else, many more offered words of consolation; offered prayer. On behalf of my brother Basilians I thank you. And I pray for you. Like Fr. Joe, you are accomplishing “the works of God” to which Jesus calls us.

How else can we “accomplish the works of God”? Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” And the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel said, “To love another is to say, ‘you, too, shall live.’” To love another is to will that this person have eternal life. And so I ask us to look around here for a moment. Whether the first person you see is a family member; a friend; a complete stranger, are we able to offer this prayer for this person: “Lord, I will that this person shall live; may this person have eternal life”? 

If we can offer this prayer for another, we show in a small but significant way our love for one another: “You, too, shall live.” We worship here; celebrate Eucharist together as a community of faith. “What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Our “Rabbi,” Jesus Christ, has always been here in our worship; our words and works of love; kindness; peace; justice; our support of those in particular need. This is our willing one another toward eternal life; toward inheriting “the food that endures for eternal life.” This is the visible and active sign we offer our world that we “believe in” Jesus Christ, “the one [God] has sent.”

Homily for Thursday, 12 February 2015– Simone and Frank Salt Funeral Mass

Readings of the day: Isaiah 43:1-4; Psalm 23 (Music setting); 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; John 21:15-19

This homily, at the funeral Mass for my maternal grandparents, Simone and Frank Salt, was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.

How deeply are we people of hope? I do not believe we would be here were we not people of hope. Beyond our grieving; our sadness; our loss of our grandmother and grandfather, Simone and Frank, mother and father; wife and husband to each other of sixty-five years; great-grandmother and great-grandfather; friends; beloved of us and of God, we are here because we hope.

And what, or who, is the focus of our hope? We hope in eternal life, for Simone and Frank and for ourselves. St. Paul begins the second reading we have heard today, from his first Letter to the Thessalonians, with these words: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”

Today, by our presence here in God’s house, we honour Simone and Frank, Grandma and Grandpa; Mom and Dad; Great-grandma and great-Grandpa, who were people of great Christian hope. We honour God, who gives us hope; who is the focus of our hope. St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians about hope remind me especially of a humorous quip that Grandpa repeated many times when I was a teenager. When we (my family) would visit their little house in Sechelt, I often slept next to the front door, which opened into their kitchen. Teenagers, of course, often need more sleep than most people, and so I would most often be the last person in the house to wake up in the morning. Grandpa would announce my belated rising enthusiastically: “Well, he is alive”!

With hope, we have gathered here to pray that this will be the same announcement as Grandma and Grandpa are welcomed into heaven: “Well, they are alive”! And this will be no ordinary life but eternal life; not only a magnificent and loving sixty-five years of marriage, but the eternal wedding feast of heaven. They are alive! This is our confident hope and our prayer, not only for Simone and Frank, but for ourselves; each and every one of us.

But what gives us this hope; this confidence that Grandma and Grandpa, that we all, will inherit God’s gift of eternal life? Does it not border on dangerous pride to be so confident that we are destined to be welcomed into heaven; destined to be with our God forever, beginning on a day none of us really knows?

Our Eucharistic Prayer offers an answer to this question. In a few moments, we will pray these words: “In [Christ] the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come. Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”

Scripture says and our prayers during this Mass say that the great hope we have in eternal life for Simone and Frank and for each of us is not some misplaced pride. We have this hope not because we somehow deserve heaven, but because, by his love for us, God wants us all to inherit eternal life. God’s love is spoken of so beautifully in our first reading, from the prophet Isaiah. God, Isaiah says, has “created” us; has “formed” us. God, who loves us, makes us, human beings, uniquely capable of loving one another and of loving God in return. God has created us for himself, St. Augustine once said, and so our “hearts are restless until they rest in” God. It is our God who says to us; says to Simone and Frank now, in Isaiah’s words, “You are precious in my sight and honoured, and I love you.” 

But the words of our Scripture and our prayers of this Mass do not deny or belittle the process of grieving our loved ones, Simone and Frank; Grandma and Grandpa; great-Grandma and great-Grandpa; Mom and Dad. The same love, this gift from God that gives us hope in eternal life also enables us to grieve; to feel sadness at the death of our beloved. Simone and Frank: These are God’s beloved as they are our beloved. God grieves as we grieve. But neither God nor we shall lose hope. God offers us consolation. God offers us eternal life.

We know and we hope in eternal life; heaven as the end goal for each of us. And yet does it not seem that, on the way to eternal life, some of us especially experience sadness; suffering; distance from our loved ones and from God more than others? Our Gospel reading from John says that this was to be the experience of St. Peter. Jesus asks Peter three times, to the point where Peter is deeply “hurt” by the question: “Do you love me”? And then Jesus reminds Peter, “When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone will… take you where you do not wish to go.” John remarks that Jesus said this to Peter “to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.”

Simone and Frank; Grandma and Grandpa; great-Grandma and great-Grandpa; Mom and Dad lived a life together of continuously answering Jesus’ question: “Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that [we] love you.” With age and through illnesses, could we not understand if it became more and more difficult for them to answer, “Yes, Lord, you know that [we] love you”; if they had an increasingly difficult time accepting being led where they “did not wish to go”; even if we understand death to be a necessary transition to eternal life?

Grandma has been led through her final, silent years of struggle with dementia. And yet, through being led to “where” I am sure she did “not wish to go,” she never lost her beauty; her smile, especially when she seemed to sense her family nearby: Her children; her grandchildren; her great-grandchildren Molly and Liam; Braiden and Jessica.

Grandpa, too, was led to a place where he did “not wish to go”; through separation from his beloved wife, Simone; through not being able to communicate in words with her (although, to the end, he communicated his undying love for her and for God in countless other ways); through his own health troubles.

Simone and Frank; Grandma and Grandpa; great-Grandma and great-Grandpa; Mom and Dad never gave up hope. They glorified God by their lives to the end: “Yes, Lord, you know that [we] love you.”

Can we imagine this now, God saying to them at the gates of heaven; God saying this to each of us one day: “I know that you love me; that you have loved me all along; that you have loved the people I love; that you are people of hope? Know this, ‘You are precious in my sight and honoured, and I love you.’ Welcome into eternal life; into my rest in heaven. You are alive!”

“Follow me.”

Homily for Sunday, 2 November 2014– Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

Readings of the day: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Romans 6:3-9; John 6:37-40 (Any readings for Masses for the Dead may be used on this day.)

What is heaven like? What happens to us after we die? Does anyone know the answers to these questions? I presume that none of us do fully. But then if nobody really knows what heaven is like or what happens after we die, then what is the point of our celebration today, our Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed; of All Souls?

Our commemoration; our remembrance of all who have gone before us in death and are experiencing or awaiting heaven would be pointless if it were about knowledge. While we live here on earth, we cannot know fully what heaven is like, or what will happen at the end of our earthly lives. Jesus’ first disciples saw him after his resurrection and witnessed his ascension into heaven. They have handed on to us their experience of these events. But none of us, as far as I know, have experienced firsthand what happens after our earthly lives end.

What we lack in knowledge of what happens after death, we make up for in hope. The point, the foundation, of our remembrance as Church of All Souls is hope. In what specifically do we hope? We hope in eternal life with God, for those who have gone before us in death and, one day, for ourselves also.

But is hope not a kind of unreasonable desire or foolish optimism? Some of us may hope to win a lottery, for instance, but this expectation would be unrealistic. Our hope for eternal life is not this kind of expectation of the near-impossible. Ours is a founded hope: Based on God’s past and present loving, merciful action in our favor, we hope in God’s future promise of eternal life.

Our first reading, from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and our Gospel reading today from John speak especially about this founded hope we have in eternal life. God has been with us in the past, Isaiah says to a people in exile, many of whom were dying without ever seeing Israel, their homeland, again. This, Isaiah says, is the God “to whom we [have] looked to save us.” God has saved us already, many times: In the garden after Adam and Eve had first fallen into sin; in protecting Cain although Cain had murdered his brother Abel; from the waters of the great flood; through Moses from slavery in Egypt…

This history of God’s past loving, merciful action; of God’s salvation is all in Isaiah’s background as he speaks. Based on this history of God’s salvation, Isaiah invites an exiled people to hope in God’s promise of an even greater fullness of this salvation. The same God who has saved us in the past and is with us in the present “will destroy death… will wipe away the tears from all faces… On that day it will be said: Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us”! Have hope in God who has saved us before, is with us to save us now, and will save us again, once and for all, in the future, Isaiah says.

We hear this same message through Jesus’ raising of Lazarus in our Gospel reading. God has been with us and has loved us in the past. God’s saving presence and love carries over into the present. Even those who did not believe that Jesus was God acknowledged the love of God past and present being worked through him: “See how he loved” Lazarus. Jesus trusts and hopes in our Father because of God’s past saving action: “Father… I know that you always hear me.” Because of this trust; this founded hope, Jesus is able to make God’s past saving action present: “Lazarus, come out”!

And there is more: Jesus, like Isaiah, invites us to hope in future fullness of salvation. “Untie [Lazarus] and let him go,” Jesus says to the crowds.  This act is only possible for the people to whom Jesus speaks if they have hope; founded yet nonetheless bold hope. The raising of Lazarus is a sign of the decisive salvation to come through Jesus’ own resurrection. We are invited to hope for salvation and, even more remarkably, Jesus asks us to cooperate with him, with God, in God’s work of salvation; of untying the bonds of death that hold us; of raising us all to eternal life; of bringing us home to our God who made us and has loved us all along.

Might we imagine salvation; what happens to us after our lives on earth end; eternal life as going home? We pray this in our Eucharistic Prayer; words we hear at funerals and will pray here in a few moments: “For your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”

Our baptism is especially a sign of our salvation; eternal life; going home. St. Paul reminds us in our second reading from Romans that “we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” but that “if we” are united “with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.” We are united by baptism with Christ in his death and in his resurrection, and we are also called by this same sacrament to be united with Christ in going home one day to our loving God.

After a long journey, how many of us want nothing more than to be home? Joseph Bernardin, the late Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, also understood our entry into eternal life as going home. In his final memoir, The Gift of Peace, Cardinal Bernardin reflects on a visit to his “parents’ homeland… in Northern Italy,” a place he had only seen previously through his “mother’s photo albums.” Cardinal Bernardin writes of his visit, “As soon as we entered the valley, I said, ‘My God, I know this place. I am home.’ Somehow I think crossing from this life into eternal life will be similar. I will be home.”

An experience of mine is similar to that of Cardinal Bernardin. Ten or more years ago, my mother worked out the genealogy of her mother’s (my grandmother’s) family. I helped by translating records and newspaper clippings that were in French into English for non-French speakers in my family. But I had never been to the little village north of Toronto where my grandmother and her ancestors were from. Between my last two years in seminary, I finally went with my parents to Grandma’s birthplace. We were met there by Grandma’s cousin and his wife, who drove us to the house of another of Grandma’s cousins. This cousin, named Jim,* had lived most of his life as a recluse after finding his father’s body in a barn. Jim’s father had taken his own life. Unexpectedly, Jim came out of his house to greet us that day. And then he was at supper with us, regaling us with stories of our family history! Like Lazarus in our Gospel reading, did Jim respond to a call to “come out” from years of loneliness and sadness to share his story? Were we who were at table that evening the people asked by Jesus, “Untie him and let him go”? There was joy at table that evening, Jim’s and all of ours; a sign of the eternal joy that I imagine awaits us in heaven.

I could have said with Cardinal Bernardin upon visiting my ancestral homeland, “My God, I know this place. I am home.” I think similarly of what eternal life will be, for me and for all of us. This, at least is my hope. Is it our hope? It is a bold hope not based on knowledge, but nonetheless a founded hope. God has been with us and loved us in the past, is with us and loves us in the present, and calls us to future hope; our hope we first expressed through our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection; our hope in the fullness of God’s salvation, when together we “will be home.”

*Name has been changed.