If I were to write a book, which I have no intention of doing, I would like to write a book about funeral homilies. It would be kind of a “how to” book keying off of what I have learned in twenty-seven years of preaching funeral homilies. Some might consider a how to book of funeral homilies to be less than exciting. However, I love preaching funeral homilies. The reasons are many.
Reasons for Liking Funeral Homilies
The first reason for liking funeral homilies is that I am afforded the opportunity to ponder and talk about heaven. Now, as Christians, we believe in heaven. However, neither the scriptures nor Church teachings say a lot about heaven. Funeral homilies are an opportunity to put our thinking caps on and wonder about heaven in relation to a loved one whose soul we believe resides there by Jesus’ grace.
A funeral homily also gives us the opportunity to ponder the power of prayer in Jesus, which transcends time and space. The Mass in general and the funeral Mass especially connect us with Jesus and therefore with our deceased loved one in a most intimate way. Whenever we get closer to Jesus we are close to our deceased loved ones who while still themselves, indeed their perfect self, are also perfectly one with Jesus.
Meeting Jesus
Most especially, funeral homilies are wonderful because in talking with loved ones before the funeral, I am given the opportunity to meet Jesus in the faithful departed person. Everyone has dimensions of Jesus either directly exhibited or indirectly uncovered by dimensions of who they are. Jesus as pointed to in the departed loved one is the essence of the funeral homily
GriefShare
The thoughts above are rolling around in my mind because I am excited to introduce a new ministry in our parishes: GriefShare. Over the next months, Sister Janet will be getting this wonderful ministry off the ground in Crescent Parishes.
Both of my past assignments as pastor have offered the GriefShare program which is a thirteen week program for those grieving the death of a loved one or other loss. While not specifically Catholic, GriefShare uses Sacred Scripture and the best of psychology presented in engaging video presentations. After watching a video session, participants who wish, share dimensions of their grief. Sharing grief accomplishes two great things. 1. It helps the teller to work through their grief and 2. Listeners experience a personal witness, which is a most intimate gift that we can offer another. Such sharing enriches listeners and helps them move successfully through their grief’s stages.
Keep your eyes on the bulletin for information from Sister Janet and tell someone you know about Griefshare, an outstanding ministry coming soon!
Sincerely and with Love in Christ,
Fr. Pat
Nativity Campus Rekey A message from Matt Jackson, Director of Finance & Administration
Over a year ago Nativity participated in a study related to a security grant we were trying to obtain. To our surprise, we failed the study miserably. It obviously isn’t good news to fail a study but for this purpose, it made us aware of issues we weren’t previously aware of and made us even more desirable for the grant! Unfortunately, after a few months, we found out that we were not the final recipient of the grant and would not receive funding to address these issues.
Even without the grant we knew that we needed to take action in resolving the most important security issues, namely replacing locks and cameras. Thanks to our current annual fund, we were able to secure funding to address both of those matters! During the week of June 2nd all locks were changed on the school, gym, and Nativity Church (all places students visit regularly).
What we have learned through this process is that many keys have been given out over the years with no documentation of who has them, which poses a high risk to the safety of our students and teachers. Now that all of the locks have been changed, we are able to have more control over access to our buildings with the use of the card readers we have had installed over the past few years.
If you are a current volunteer with a key to the Nativity campus and will now need an access card for the card reader, we ask that you please fill out the request form at https://forms.gle/uKCBaPxQW6G9Ezgc6.
We would like to thank all of those who have donated already to the annual fund to address these issues and are very excited to be able to have a more secure facility when our students return in August!