The Communities of New Skete

Homily at Michael Csernica’s burial service, New Skete 6-20-09.
Glory to Jesus Christ!

In recent years I have been privileged to be present with so many people we know and love as they have passed away. I am always amazed at that journey an ill and dying person travels, especially when surrounded by family, friends, and hospice. I still feel awestruck and a bit hesitant in the presence of this mystery. Maybe only the miracle of birth is anything like it.

Each of us is so different, of course, and it seems to me individuals are also unique in how they act and react in their passing from this life. Tragedy, pain, conflict, anger, denial, and tears, are all a part of dying, but so are love, deep feeling, new ways of acting, peace, and the healing of troubled relationships in the midst of so much sadness and loss. We move a little closer to one another, even relaxing into a kind of forgiveness when that is needed.

Many of us have also seen or felt great determination and courage in those most difficult times imaginable, and how it has been enough just to put one foot in front of the other and remember to breathe. We may have asked ourselves about the things we did or did not do – but also the questions why now, why them not me, why have I survived so much – yet I have also heard in these crises the advise to be kind to yourself and carry a loving attitude toward yourself and toward each other.

All of those who lie buried here at New Skete are a part of our daily lives: and we pray for them and pass by their markers. But at every new death we become more profoundly aware of our belief handed down from generations before us. In a way beyond our senses, as good or not as good as they are, Michael’s life as well as all the others’ continues in another sphere of existence that is so real yet, beyond any words to describe it. The holy apostles knew this after the death of Jesus; believers and unbelievers before us have felt or somehow experienced it.

At one time or another we ourselves might have been witness to the certainty and unusual signs and signals that those we love who have just died are here with us. But we know too that they are going into the light and love of Christ that is greater than space and time as we know it.
All of us have a limited time to pursue new and wiser ways of living together on this earth. This can be both liberating and painful. And like those whom we mourn, we too can learn how crucial it is to get it right with the people we know, and with ourselves, and with God. Then when our own final moment of lucidity comes, we might even faintly smile and whisper in the hearing of whoever is present, “I love you.”