CEMETERY  MOMENTS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Cemetery Moments.”

There are moments and there are moments.

What are your thoughts when you stand on cemetery grass - and you look down on grey granite cemetery stones  - or upright white marble tombstones? What are your thoughts?  What are your wonderings?

There are stories here. A cemetery is a library - but most books can’t be opened and read. They are closed books in boxes buried six feet underground. We don’t know who this person was. Sometimes all we see is a name and some numbers.

VIETNAM VETERAN’S MEMORIAL

It’s a human experience - this wondering about people buried beneath our feet - on behind a wall - like the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.

I’ve been to that Wall a few times. I remember going with a Vietnamese Redemptorist: Hai Dinh. We were in Washington D.C. and this was the one place he wanted to see. He was quiet as he stood there.  His biggest surprise was -  how far away from the Wall -  the tall Washington Monument was. When he saw the Memorial Wall on TV, he noticed the Washington Monument in the sky behind the memorial.

My experience was different. Every time I’ve been there, I  deliberately looked for a name on that wall - the brother of a Redemptorist who died in Vietnam: Thomas Francis Campbell - 19 years of age. Born May 18, 1948. Died April 9, 1968. He was in Vietnam just a few months:  February 6 till April 9, 1968.

YOUR FAMILY STONES - YOUR FAMILY MEMORIALS

Where are your family stones? Who’s buried there?

Has anyone taken pictures and made a photo album of many of the grave stones they know of in their family. Then they can sit down at times with that album as a prayer book. It’s as good as an old person’s prayer book getting fatter and fatter with the years with death memorial cards. Or they can sit with that photo album and tell the next generation about who has gone before them?

Does anyone ever take the little ones - or the next few generations - to the stones and tell the stories?

More and more people are into cremation and some into saving the cremains on mantle pieces or buried in back yards or at sea. It’s my opinion that stones - memorial stones - tomb stones last longer that urns - just as people give diamonds and share the word “forever” with each other.

FEAST OF SAINT MATTHIAS

Today is the feast of Saint Matthias: May 14.

The only thing we know about Saint Matthias is that he took the place of Judas - and got chosen by a lottery of sorts.  After that come the legends and the traditions.

Some say he traveled to Ethiopia. Others list the region of modern day Georgia - formerly of the Soviet Union.  Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans honor him.  He is patron saint of alcoholics, carpenters, Gary Indiana, and Great Falls and Billings Montana. There are written fragments of the so called Gospel of Matthias - a 2^nd century document from a heretical group.

SISTER MATTHIAS

Now why am I mentioning all this?

When I was a kid, I went with my father to Portland, Maine to visit his sister, a Mercy Nun, Sister Mary Patrick.  We went to the graves of two of his sisters who were Mercy Nuns as well, but they died in their 20’s - one as a young nun, 29, Sister Matthias,  and the other as a postulant who also got sick and died in her 20’s.

Well, a few years ago some of us from the parish went on a cruise to New England and 2 places in Canada: St. John’s New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

On the day we stopped into Portland Maine I went off by myself to St. Joseph’s convent - where my dad’s sister worked for 50 plus years in the kitchen. I didn’t know where anything was, so I didn’t want to stick anyone with a wild goose chase. Then I walked to a cemetery to find my father’s sisters. I found 2 of them:  Sister Mary Patrick - and Sister Matthias.

I knew Sister Mary Patrick - but I knew nothing, nothing about Sister Matthias.  I found her grave - but I didn’t find the other grave. 

Anyway I was doing something in memory of Sister Matthias Costello - and the only other thing on her stone besides her name was: 1884 - 1913.

CONCLUSION

It’s good to know that somewhere 100 years from now, our names will be somewhere - in a graveyard, on a ship manifesto, in a telephone book, on a memorial card, in a handwritten something, with the words, “Love” and then our name.

It’s good to have been here - even if all we did was to replace someone else - like Saint Matthias - and we did our best.