Opening remarks:
My dear brothers and sisters, we gather
this morning, we come from places far and near, we come together as the people
of God to remember Sally and Danny, to celebrate their lives, to mourn their
sudden and tragic deaths, and to say good-bye.
And to pray for them and commit them into the hands of our loving and
merciful God. And we remember too,
Danny’s wife Bianca, and her family in Cathedral City California, mourning her
passing.
I think it’s important to note at
the outset that, unlike the death of an elderly loved one after an illness,
where we might feel sadness and possibly even relief, we gather today filled perhaps
with all kinds of emotions. We certainly
feel great grief, great sadness on their passing, and in the way in which they
died. But we may have other feelings –
anger perhaps. Frustration at not having
had the chance to say good-bye. Remorse
perhaps about important things left unsaid.
Guilt, or shame or embarrassment, even.
Betrayal. Bitterness. A feeling of being overwhelmed, or confused. Perhaps
shock or even a profound emptiness. And
my guess is, you may have been filled at one point or another over the past
couple weeks with any one or all of these emotions.
These are all perfectly normal
emotions as each of us struggle to comprehend, to come to terms with, to make
peace with, this awful tragedy. And these
emotions are not, of themselves, right or wrong. They simply are. It is helpful, I think, to recognize these
emotions in ourselves and express them when necessary, for they are stepping
stones in doing the hard work of grieving the ones we love.
My name is Deacon Ed Knauf, parish
deacon here at St. Kateri Parish, and Danny’s uncle, Sally’s brother-in-law. It is my privilege to preside at this
morning’s funeral liturgy, and I would like to welcome you and thank each of
you for being here this morning.
Readings:
Lamentations 3:17-26
Romans 5:5-11
Mark 15:33-39;16:1-6
Homily:
Betty and Nancy, Brendan and Patti,
Andrew, Marc and Tracy, on behalf of our pastor, Father Paul English, our
priests, and all the staff and parishioners of St. Kateri Parish, please accept
our deepest and most sincere condolences on the loss of your dear Sally and
Danny.
We’ve heard Nancy and Brendan
beautifully speak of the lives of Sally and Danny this morning.
And we saw in the video the wonderful work
Sally was doing with developmentally challenged kids at School 41.
We heard how she was a great friend to the
many who worked with her and knew her. Of the big heart that she displayed to
all whom she knew, but especially the children, her own children, and her
students.
And we heard Brendan and Nancy
speak eloquently of the beautiful kid Danny was, of the love he had for his
son, Jacob, we know of the friendship he had for many – reading his facebook
page you sense the love of his friends displayed there.
But we gather here today not only to
recall the lives of Sally and Danny, but I think I would be remiss if I didn’t
say something about their death, and about the way in which they died.
Anyone watching sporting events in
the 70s and 80s will remember the guy with rainbow colored hair holding the
sign that read John 3:16, which is one of my favorite bible verses – “God so
loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe might not
perish but might have eternal life.” Well another of my favorite verses is
first Peter 3:15, for Peter tells us “Always be prepared to give anyone
who asks the reason for your hope.” Hope.
The purpose of this homily, then, is to give the reason for my hope.
It would be difficult, to be sure,
if our gathering today were the result of Sally and Danny dying in a tragic car
accident, or from some mysterious illness, but we gather this morning
confronted by the reality of an act that we simply can’t get our minds around.
A horrific act that defies logic, defies explanation.
We want to make sense of it –why?
How? How does something like this happen? And how is it that a guy seemingly on
top of the world at 8 O’clock on New Years Eve plunges, less than a day later,
into what we can only conclude was an uncontrollable rage and deep, dark
despair? And why is it that a person as loving and caring as Sally should meet
her end in such a sudden and violent fashion?
We read about these things, we see
them on the news, but we never expect them to happen to people we know, people
we love. The shock we feel, the stress, the
anxiety, perhaps even the fear – are because we are confronted face to face
with - and there’s no other way to put it - an evil act. A terrible, violent, evil act. And we gather today as a people of faith, a
people who hold human life sacred, who believe human life is a gift from God, not
ours to take. And so we’re nothing if not horrified by what happened in that
apartment in Palm Springs.
And it’s natural, I think, to ponder
– what about the eternal destiny, especially of Danny. Some, even some people of faith, may be ready
to pass judgment and consign him forever to the nether world.
Well, know this – who are we
to judge? We are all, to be sure, the
“ungodly,” the sinners of whom St. Paul writes to the Romans in the reading
Michele proclaimed. We are all in need
of mercy and forgiveness. And while we’re
not here today to canonize anyone, to make anyone a saint, nor are we here to
conclude the opposite. God alone
is the judge of men’s hearts and souls.
All we can do is entrust our loved ones into His loving care.
After all, we as Christians always preach
of the need to separate the act which we call evil, from the actor – the
person. Hate the sin, love the sinner, we
are fond of saying, we are taught, and we believe. Well we’ll never have a better opportunity to
practice what we preach than on this occasion.
For we must recognize that people
are fragile, and with all that life throws at us, good people sometimes become
broken people. Good people sometimes do
bad things, sometimes very bad things. What
happened in that apartment in Palm Springs could not have been a rational act, wasn’t
thought out, wasn’t planned. Danny
struggled for a lot of his life with many issues, many demons you might say,
and they pursued him for much of his adult life – and on that fateful morning, you
could say they finally caught up with him.
We’ll never fully understand why it
happened, but it’s clear that something must have snapped, must have broken.
But our Church, trusting in God’s loving mercy, always teaches that our
accountability for sinful acts depends on full consent of the will. And we believe in a Lord and God who alone
knows the hearts of men and women, who alone knows what happened in the
mind and heart of our brother Danny. The
words of Our Lord from the cross come to mind – “Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do.”
And so, as a people of faith, we
give this tragedy, this mess of human brokenness, we entrust this all to Him,
to Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ. For our
Christ is not a far-off distant god, but rather One who became one of us, who
took on human flesh, who walked and slept and ate, who has “been there, done
that” to put it in modern terms. Who
knows what it’s like to mourn the violent death of a loved one – his cousin
John. Who knows what it’s like to lose a
parent, Blessed Joseph. Who faced most everything
we face in this life. And a Lord who
Himself became the victim of a horrible, violent death.
But more than a man, Christ truly
was the Son of God, Who loves each one of us with mercy and compassion deeper
than the deepest of oceans. Who loves
Sally and Bianca and Danny with that same unfathomable love. I can imagine that just as Our Lord was dying
on the cross, breathing His last, the devil was right there lifting his arms in
triumph. But it was a fleeting triumph,
for on Easter Morning, by rising from the tomb, Our Lord snatched eternal victory
from the jaws of defeat, confounding the prince of darkness, and winning eternal
life for each of us who believe.
If the devil dared to lift his arms
in triumph over the tragic scene in Palm Springs, we can only trust that Our
Blessed Lord was right there too, to once again confound the evil one and bring
His victory, His eternal victory.
We pray then, for the souls of our
beloved Sally, Bianca and Danny, and we entrust them into the loving arms of Our
Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, and we ask Him to hold them close, to wrap them in
His tender love and shower them with His extravagant mercy.
And we pray also for ourselves, that
God give us peace in our mourning, and strength and grace to go forth from here
to bring light into the darkness of people’s lives, with new resolve to sow seeds
of love where there is none, forgiveness where there is bitterness, peace where
there is discord, and healing where there is brokenness. And we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
