REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY HOMILY -- Nov, 2021 STM TORONTO

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY                               2021  STM TORONTO

 

Joseph Tomelty, the late Irish playwright in his play All Soul’s Night, tells a haunting story. Set in 1949, in the fictitious village of Assagh on the shores of a County Down lough, it tells the story of a family trying to get by, in the midst of strife and tragedy. On All Soul’s night they become aware of the souls of their relatives asking for prayers. 

 

The soul of a young fisherman killed tragically at sea chastises his family for neglecting to pray for him while he was at sea and even since he has died. A quote from the play is found on the playwright’s tomb stone: “Pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins; pray for the living that they may be loosed from their greed.”  What Tomalty refers to is that sense that artists and poets have expressed down the generations at this time of year, that somehow the veil is thinner. 

 

This time of year with All Saints, All Souls and Remembrance Day reminds us of our own mortality and that we need to pray for the Dead as well as the Living. Fr. Faber, a 19^th C. Oratorian refers to a brother: “One half from earth, one half from heaven, Was that mysterious blessing given; Just as his life had been One half in heaven, one half on earth, Of earthly toil and heavenly mirth, A wondrous woven scene!”

 

This needs to be the case that for each of us, for every Catholic Christian, that our life must be marked by the character of heaven, must be shaped by the priorities of the greater city, the heavenly Jerusalem. 

 

At the heart of all is an overriding theme: the spiritual closeness to the departed, of the economy of prayer for all the children of God. In mutual prayer we trade freely in the benefits of that place where we hope to spend eternity – Jerusalem the Golden. In charity we pray for those who have died, and for those still alive that we may enjoy the vision of God together on that other shore.  And today we remember and pray for all those who gave their lives for God and the freedom of others.

 

The veil is always very thin, and our loved ones who have gone before us to that other shore are still very close to us. We pray for the dead that they might be loosed from the effects of sin, and we must pray for one another that we might lose those sometimes-greedy attachments to the things that cannot bring us to that City of Light. With God’s help, may our lives continue to be a “wondrous woven scene”, shot through with prayer for the “quick and the dead” in the gilded light of Jerusalem the Golden with the threads which will, at the last, lead us home.

Remembrance Sunday

   Sung Requiem Mass 

12:30 Sunday, Nov. 13.  

Refreshments to follow.

HOMILY – Funeral for Antoinette Echlin Buckle and reflection on "The Greatest Generation".

 We heard at the beginning of this liturgy St. Paul’s reflection upon the love of God amidst the many changes and challenges of human life.

 

St. Paul says: “I AM persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38, 39.

 

Antoinette (Tony) Echlin was born in 1927, the last year of birth for those who would come to be known as “the Greatest Generation.” (1901 – 1927). They were the greatest generation not in the sense of being superior to all others but because, collectively, they embodied, in a unique way, the virtues which humanity is enabled to reflect by the grace and love of God. 

 

These virtues enable what we see in so many individuals of that generation: sacrifice for others, generosity of spirit reflected in service to humanity, devotion and humility before God and love for God and country. 

 

In an age that seems pathologically focused on the individual and the right to define one’s self in all circumstances, those who endured the Great Depression and WW II reflect the virtues that we stand so much in need of today.

 

Though imperfect, like all humans, still, those of Tony’s generation collectively maintained the importance of the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity along with the Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Courage and Moderation.

 

As in these days we gather to pay tribute to Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, we know that Tony would be amongst the first to celebrate the Queen’s leadership and gallantry from the time of their youth. The Queen was one year older than Tony.  

While the youth of Canada lined up to serve in the armed forces and the many duties at home and abroad, Tony, in her own way, participated in the war effort and indeed was one who shared in sacrifice as she lost her young fiancée, Ashton, an RCAF casualty in Europe. 

 

In that great conflict every person was called to duty, something epitomized by our late Queen throughout the war and for 70 years on the Throne.

 

Like so many, my own mother and father served in the Canadian Forces. On a lighter note, people would laugh when we noted that Corporal Windsor (aka Princess Elizabeth) served near Slough, where Mum was lieutenant in charge of the post office. If they had met on duty, Princess Elizabeth would have had to salute Lt. Marjorie Hennessy. Of course, Mum would be quick to point out, and Tony would agree, that Marjorie would then curtsey before the Princess – to keep things in proper perspective.

 

So, as hundreds of thousands file by the catafalque in the great hall of Westminster Palace, Tony and those loyal souls of her generation give thanks for being united in bonds of mutual affection for their Queen and in thanksgiving for the ordered liberty we share. 

 

Tony always shared with many in the work of charities, small and large make our common life such a remarkable achievement in history – a history which Tony was always glad to remember and participate in with her work at Sick Kids Hospital Play Park; her long service in the Sunday School at St. Paul’s Church and community events at Moredale. 

 

Having read widely in the history of Great Britain and the Commonwealth Tony understood that all these activities were valuable in themselves as well as being models of how to behave. She agreed with Edmund Burke that we are bound in a mutual society of those who have died, of the living and of those yet to come.

 

Continuity and tradition were important to Tony not simply because of the age in which she lived but for the heritage passed on to her children and grandchildren. And recently, she was so pleased to see and hold in her arms, a great grandson, Josiah.

 

….“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”