FUNERAL SERMONS Ayo Disu, student and then colleague at University of Ibadan
Margaret Kenny, my Mother
The Father of Fr. Luis Muñoz and the Sister of Sr. Angela Uwalaka
A.G.S. Pastor Samuel Babatunde Mala
Professor Thomas Essien Ekpenyong
Martin Kenny, my brother
Prof. Asuquo Antia
AT THE FUNERAL MASS OF AYO DISU,
23 December 1988,
Seat of Wisdom Chapel, University of IbadanThe death of one we all consider a young man —34— all equipped for a brilliant career, seems a tragedy. The Gospel just read (Lk 23:39-46) tells of another young man who died at 33. It leads us to seek, in Jesus' death, some meaning, some hope in the case of Ayo Disu.
Suffering & death a punishment?
Not all suffering, illness and death is punishment for sin, although it can be, since sin demands punishment, as is expressed in the song of Azariah (Dan 3:27-33, Deuterocanonical):
You are upright in all you have done for us.. True is the sentence you have given, in all that you have brought down on us.. for you have treated us as our sins deserve.. All that you have done to us, you have been fully justified in doing.
In the case of Job, three friends tried to convince him that he had done something seriously wrong. But Job was aware that he did not deserve punishment, and in the end God rebuked Job's friends for their accusations.
We do not say that anyone's sickness or death is a punishment if we follow the advice of Paul (1 Cor 4:5):
Stop passing judgement before the time of the Lord's return. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and manifest the intentions of hearts. At that time, everyone will receive his praise from God.
Jesus and suffering
We will never be able to see any meaning or hope in suffering and death unless we can see God's love at work simultaneously. For us Christians this is revealed in his Son, Jesus, who went about doing good: healing the sick, consoling the afflicted, feeding the hungry, freeing people from deafness, blindness, leprosy and evil spirits. Most radically he freed people from sin and overcame death. He did this not by a simple act of sovereign divine power but by entering the world of suffering himself. His enemies ganged up against him and conspired to kill him. He did not resist, because it was his Father's will that he should suffer, not in substitution for us, but in solidarity with us. Identifying with every last person of the human race, he faced his Passion, as Isaiah says:
despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Is 53:5-6}
Ourselves and suffering
On the Cross, Jesus not only opened for us the kingdom of heaven, but also redeemed human suffering itself, so that "as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in encouragement" (2 Cor 1:5), and "by sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, we attain the resurrection from the dead" (cf. Phil 3:10-11).
How can suffering benefit someone who is united with Christ? First of all, it purifies us and leads us to spiritual maturity. In all Christian tradition the idea of a one-time experience of the fullness of salvation is an anomaly. If we once turn our lives over to the Lord there remains a lot to do to love the Lord our God with our whole heart and our whole soul and all our strength. Most often myriad forms of selfishness, passion, pride, quest for human praise and other unworthy attitudes lie dormant or hiding in the corners of our psyche. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, both doctors of the Church and eminent examples of its mystical tradition, stress that from an initial conversion experience to the fullness of pure and generous love of God there lay many stages of purification to undergo, in most cases taking many painful years, and that few reach the stage of full union of their spirits with the Spirit of God.
Suffering is not something we should seek or desire, and we should pray for good health, but we cannot avoid all suffering, and death is something each of us must ultimately face. Providentially, it serves to lead us into ourselves, makes us confront the ultimate meaning of our existence, and detaches us from the things that impede our perfect union with God. At first we struggle against unavoidable suffering; later we may feel dejected and alienated, even from our best friends; finally we learn to accept it and experience joy in it.
Beyond purification, suffering can lead us into an active role of sharing in the redemptive suffering of Christ for the benefit of others, in as much as it is endured in a context of loving and serving God and neighbour, just as Paul spoke of "completing" in himself the suffering of Christ (Col 1:24).
Saved, yet in need of prayer
Catholic regulations forbid making eulogies at funerals. As I said before, only God is the judge, but we can point to evidence, particularly during his last illness, that Ayo Disu had a concern for God, his neighbor and his ultimate destiny. He received communion several times and, when he was awake and alert, asked for prayers. This he did even on his last day. So we have a reasonable idea that he is not lost, but is with the Lord.
But was he perfect? We are not here to conduct an inquest, but we can talk about the generality of all of us and say no. We are not yet perfect images of our heavenly Father in setting no bounds to our love, as we are commanded in Matthew 5:43 (see new JB). Yet love, especially in circumstances of suffering, covers a multitude, and a death such as Ay's can be very purifying.
Clement of Alexandria, around the year 200, was one of the first to teach clearly that repentance demands not just a change of mind, but also a painful process of purification, healing and reparation. If it is not finished in this life it will continue in the hereafter. Other Church fathers had the same understanding of the Christian message, and it became part of Catholic teaching. That is why we pray for the dead. They are saved, if they died repentant of any serious sin they may have committed, but before entering the presence of God to enjoy the beatific vision, God purifies them in some mysterious way which we believe can be aided by our prayers. That is why we pray, "May they rest in perfect peace". May Ayo enter the joy prepared for him before the foundation of the world.
We pray also for the family and all who have shared in their sorrow, that they may be consoled by the certainty of the Resurrection and of being reunited with him and all our loved ones who have gone before us.
Conclusion
May suffering and death not intimidate us, but beckon us to the joy and triumph of the Resurrection, since our brother Jesus has already gone ahead of us and prepared a sure way for us.
FUNERAL HOMILY FOR
MARGARET KENNY
28 July 1904 - 13 September 1993
at the Dominican Priory, River Forest
16 September 1993
Readings: Isaiah 25:6a,7-9
Luke 12:35-40 "The Lord will destroy death.. and wipe away tears.. We will rejoice that he has saved us."
Mother had a painful life and a painful death. All those troubles are now over and she is now rejoicing in her place in glory.
She also had a beautiful life and a beautiful death. Joy was strewn everywhere all along the way. We are sad because she was so beautiful and now is taken from us. Sometimes we like to freeze moments of joy, but we cannot. As a child I was given a rose petal and told to put it in a book. I did. A year or so later it was still there, but brown and fragile. The beauty was gone.
Only Jesus, the alpha and omega of history, has succeeded in freezing beauty. His life and teachings are recorded in the New Testament, a book of the past, but are brought alive to us by the living Jesus who is powerful and present wherever people are, till the end of the world. His death and resurrection are immortalized and made tangible to us in the Eucharist. O Jesus, we touch you and worship you, our Lord and our God!
Yes, he is the bridegroom present with us by baptism, the Eucharist and in every joyful moment of our life. But he is absent from us when sin or sorrow comes into our lives. This is a beautiful world, but it is also a vale of tears. We are waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom to take us to the perfect place of glory. There we will be radiant with the beauty of all the goodness and joy we have ever received from the Lord. "Let them find rest from their labors, for their works accompany them" (Rev. 14:13).
Be ready when he comes. Mother was, all the time. She could sum up her life by saying, "My strength is from God who looks after me." She was wonderfully blest, but all along had to face challenges that would have made many others collapse. As the eighth of the nine children of Peter Henry and Catherine Parks, her privileged childhood was shaken by a serious mastoid operation and the death of her younger sister Kathleen. Educated by the Adrian Dominicans at St. Columbanus and the Sinsinawa Dominicans at Visitation High School, she was well prepared to enter the secular environment of Normal Teachers College. Capped by a degree from Loyola, she entered confidently the then anti-Catholic world of the Chicago Board of Education, eager to prove her competency as a teacher as well as answer any blunt or subtle jibes to her faith. Well read and well informed, she whipped off protest letters to newspapers and radio and TV stations any time they smeared the Catholic faith.
As a teacher, not only was she able to turn out students of high academic standard; she gained a reputation for being able to win over and soften the most difficult kids.
She bravely faced the burdens of a marriage in the depression, and bore the loss of her second child, Alice. Soon afterwards began the first symptoms of Dad's long problem with alcohol. Though Dad was very loving, this problem took the utmost of Mother's moral energy.
With six living children, we found it hard to make ends meet, and she learned to be thrifty and not wasteful. She was fond of telling the story of two women in ancient Rome who met on the street and one, after showing off her jewelry, asked the other where hers was. The other answered, "Right here," pointing to her children. Later, when family income was better, Mother still was frugal to herself and generous to others, aware that all she had was on trust from God and he provided it. She used to tell of Henry Ford who, with all his millions, died in a farm cabin without light. Providentially, Mother had very good health herself, and bequeathed this to her children.
Most of all she was concerned to bequeath the faith to her children. She made sure we went to Mass on Sunday, but always resisted institutionalizing extras, like the family rosary, because she was always afraid of children later rebelling against excess piety foisted on them when they were young.
The problems and crises of each child, and later each grandchild, she took as her own. They became her own prayer, pain and sleepless nights. That is why we tried not to let her know about most problems, although she never smothered us with her concern.
Nobody knows the troubles I've had; nobody knows the prayers I've said. Nobody knows the extent of my love, nobody but God alone.
I think Mother was always ready for the coming of the Bridegroom but, like wine, she became sweeter with age. Alzheimer's disease the past three years was a curtain around her inner life. There, without the distraction and anxiety of worldly problems, the Master prepared the brew to become yet sweeter. That was her final purification.
She, like so many others I have come to know recently, are joining the ranks of saints in heaven canonized only by those who knew them. I think of a novice, Alex, whom we buried last year. I think of a university student, Godwin Patrick, who suffered nine months of painful cancer and offered it all in intercession for the Dominican Community in Ibadan. As for Mother, we ask the Lord to give her the eternal rest he has already given her because of our anticipated prayers.
This is a time of loss, especially for myself and my brothers and sisters. Visiting with the many sympathisers has been a great comfort to us. But when we are alone we must cry. A greater comfort is our belief in the Communion of Saints. That means they can help us. The saints are at rest from their labors but, like our heavenly Father, they are never idle. St. Dominic told his brothers that he would be of more use to them when he was gone than he was in this life. That is because the saints are always fully enthralled with the goodness and beauty of God in a perpetual Mount Tabor experience and can pray for us with full energy and no distraction. Now the curtain is pulled aside for Mother and she sees clearly and serenely all that pertains to our happiness and union with God. So her prayer for us is very powerful. Mary Fran told me of some longstanding prayers that were answered the day Mother died. She could only conclude that Mother got up to heaven and raised hell. She may not be the greatest saint, but she is the one we know, and getting in contact with her is plugging into the whole heavenly network.
The saints can also speak to us, not usually in our language of words but by some deeper awareness. A week ago Sunday, what made me so anxious to pray for her? Some mysterious communication I could not cerebrally understand. While she was struck with her heart failure on Tuesday I was struck with a malaria attack that made me come aside, as I understood, and intercede for something, I did not know what. Only when the phone call came did it fit together. Susan has her own story to tell.
Once, when I was a small child, Mother was late and left the house in a hurry to teach school. Mrs. Mahon, a kind neighbor who minded us, had to run after and call her back because I was crying so much because Mother had left without giving me a hug and a kiss. I don't remember the incident, but Mother always reminded me of it whenever I left her for a long time, like going back to Nigeria. When the phone call came this time I began to cry like long ago that she was going without her usual hug and kiss. Still, I told her that she should not wait for me. But, arriving back, I learned that she did insist on waiting to hug and kiss me. She could not speak, but in two and a half days by her bedside I learned another language, and we communicated very well. From her often radiant face I could well read the ecstatic joy under her pain.
Mother is now at peace in the beatific vision of God. We are the ones left in a foggy world, but our Catholic faith is the light on the way. God has given us each a measure of talent and energy which he expects us to put it to good use. There are joys and struggles ahead and one day our own death. May Mother continue to inspire and guide us all in the way of peace until we join her in her place of glory. And may our Mother Mary show unto us the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus.
MEMORIAL MASS FOR
THE FATHER OF FR. LUIS MUOZ
AND THE SISTER OF SR. ANGELA UWALAKA
22 June 1994
Seat of Wisdom Chapel, U.I.
Readings: 1) Job 19:1,23-27 2) Rom 14:7-12 3) Jn 14:1-6 Fr. Muñoz and Sr. Uwalaka are bereaved. It is painful to lose someone so close and so good to us, as I myself experienced when I lost my Mother last September. Sometimes we like to freeze moments of joy, but we cannot. As a child I was given a rose petal and told to put it in a book. I did. A year or so later it was still there, but brown and fragile. The beauty was gone.
Only Jesus, the alpha and omega of history, has succeeded in freezing beauty. His life and teachings are recorded in the New Testament, a book of the past, but are brought alive to us by the living Jesus who is powerful and present wherever people are, till the end of the world. His death and resurrection are immortalized and made tangible to us in the Eucharist. O Jesus, we touch you and worship you, our Lord and our God!
Yes, he is the bridegroom present with us by baptism, the Eucharist and in every joyful moment of our life. But he is absent from us when sin or sorrow comes into our lives. This is a beautiful world, but it is also a vale of tears. We are waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom to take us to the perfect place of glory. There, as Job says, we will see him face to face, and we will be radiant with the beauty of all the goodness and joy we have ever received from the Lord. "Let them find rest from their labors, for their works accompany them" (Rev. 14:13).
Be ready when he comes because, as Paul writes to the Romans, he will demand an account from us. We must be purified to enter his presence. Jesus purifies us by his blood, but he rarely does so completely all at once. At the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples they do not need a complete bath because they are clean already, but he still insisted on washing their feet (Jn 13:5-11). Once we turn our lives over to the Lord there remains a lot before we love the Lord our God with our whole heart and our whole soul and all our strength. Most often myriad forms of selfishness, passion, pride, quest for human praise and other unworthy attitudes lie dormant or hiding in the corners of our psyche. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, both doctors of the Church and eminent examples of its mystical tradition, stress that from an initial conversion experience to the fullness of pure and generous love of God there lay many stages of purification to undergo, in most cases taking many painful years, and that few reach the stage of full union of their spirits with the Spirit of God.
Clement of Alexandria, around the year 200, was one of the first to teach clearly that repentance demands not just a change of mind, but also a painful process of purification, healing and reparation. If it is not finished in this life it will continue in the hereafter. Other Church fathers had the same understanding of the Christian message, and it became part of Catholic teaching. That is why we praqy for the dead. They are saved, if they died repentant of any serious sin they may have committed, but before entering the presence of God to enjoy the beatific vision, God purifies them in some mysterious way which we believe can be aided by our prayers. That is why we pray, "May they rest in perfect peace".
The other side of death is entering the place that Jesus prepared for us. Life moves on, and the time comes when we outgrow this present life and we are due for promotion to a better life. Many of those we have known have lived exemplary lives of goodness. Even though they may have had some faults, we believe that they speedily enter God's presence. Some of these are officially canonized by the Church as saints. Others are recognized as such only by those who knew them.
A major comfort in our bereavement is our belief in the Communion of Saints. That means they can help us. The saints are at rest from their labors but, like our heavenly Father, they are never idle. While dying, St. Dominic told his mournful brothers that he would be of more use to them when he was gone than he was in this life. That is because the saints are always fully enthralled with the goodness and beauty of God in a perpetual Mount Tabor experience and can pray for us with full energy and no distraction. So death should not mean separation, but greater closeness to them through our union with Jesus, who said, "It is better for you that I go" (Jn 16:7).
Love of God and of neighbor is one universal love, whether our neighbor is still in this life or has gone on ahead. Attention to any of them never competes with love of God because we are all united in the one body of Christ. To revere any part of his body is to revere Christ himself.
There are joys and struggles ahead and one day our own death. May our prayers benefit our departed ones to the extent that they need it, and may they continue to inspire and guide us all in the way of peace until we join them in their place of glory. And at the hour of our death may our Mother Mary show unto us the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus.
A.G.S. PASTOR SAMUEL BABATUNDE MALA:
GRAVE-SIDE ADDRESSby
Rev. Fr. Professor Joseph Kenny, O.P.
Head of Department of Religious Studies,
University of Ibadan
28 June 1996The entire University of Ibadan, the Faculty of Arts and the Department of Religious Studies express our regrets at the passing away of Pastor Samuel Babatunde Mala, a Reader in this Department and an Assistant General Superintendent of the Christ Apostolic Church.
As a spokesman of the University, I must first highlight his academic achievements. He began his university studies in Religious Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and, because of the civil war, finished with a B.A. at Ibadan in 1967. He obtained an M.A. in West African Studies at the University of Birmingham in 1970 and another M.A. in Islamic Studies at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 1973.
Pastor Mala started his university teaching career as Lecturer II on 1 October 1974 at the Jos campus of the University of Ibadan and was in Jos until he had to move to Ibadan in July 1976. He rose through the ranks and was promoted to the grade of Reader with effect from 1 October 1988.
During the last twenty years Pastor Mala made an immense contribution to the Department of Religious Studies, the Faculty of Arts and the University as a whole. He was for many years the Examination Coordinator for the Department and represented the Department on the Faculty Curriculum Committee. In the area of curriculum development he made his greatest impact in the Department and in the University as a whole. He also served as the Acting Head of Department from August 1988 to July 1990. At the time he died he was the editor of Orita, Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies.
At the Faculty level, he served as a Faculty representative on the Senate Curriculum Committee and on the Faculty Board of Education. He also served as Faculty representative on the Faculty Appointment and Promotions Committee and the Board of Arts Studies. Pastor Mala also for two years represented the Congregation on the Senate.
He was a member of national and international academic organizations and served on the executive boards of some of them. Between 1979 and 1984 he was editor of Religions, Journal of the Nigerian Association for the Study of Religions.
A whole other side of Pastor Mala's life was his involvement in the Christ Apostolic Church and the Organization of African Instituted Churches, where his immense contributions have been highlighted by others. A further very rich side of his life was his involvement in PROCMURA (Project for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa), which has been described by Rev. Lawal.
We come down from his achievements to something much more important: Babs Mala the person. Babs was committed to God, to his family, to whatever work he was called to do. He worked energetically without complaining; he never gave up, and in every difficulty saw things positively and always found a bright avenue of promise that he encouraged us to follow. He could fight for his cause and argue his points with vehemence, but was always a man of peace and could always calm a crisis.
Babs was a man of intense prayer. He fasted, not just from food, but any illicit or useless diversions. He was generous to the needy. No one could enter his house without being struck with the beauty of Christian life prevailing there.
Babs again was an open-minded man. He would recognize and give credit to goodness and truth wherever it was found, even if was not perfect good or the complete truth. This made him open not only to people of other faiths but also to what their faiths stand for. He reached out to others and built bridges of communication and communion, a task that he never finished and none of us shall ever finish, but which we must constantly work on. That is because Babs realized that the goal of God's kingdom is to bring all men together as brothers under God and as one flock under Christ.
Babs worked hard for that. We may not agree with the way he went about it, but he was not wrong in his goal. That is why, as a Christian brother, I am not happy to hear about factions in his Church. I appeal to you on behalf of Pastor Mala, from the heart of Christ, to come together. I appeal also to his family never to forget the lessons of good life that he left you. I appeal to the University of Ibadan community to carry on in the spirit of his undaunted energy and always to keep peace, never degenerating into factions.
We are all on the road together to our heavenly home. Babs has preceded us and is now in a place of security. May he and all the Church triumphant continue to intercede for us and inspire us as we try to join them in following the Lamb to glory.
FUNERAL OF PROFESSOR THOMAS ESSIEN EKPENYONG
U.I. 2 MAY 1997"I am the resurrection and the life." We are burying a man who was dedicated to life: the life of animals, the quality of life served by sport, the life of his family, and the very life of God come in human flesh and still present among us in the preaching and sacraments of the Church.
What is our attitude to life? Some people are contemptuous of life and kill with ease, as we have been experiencing in this part of Ibadan. Others, especially abroad, campaign for animal rights; they are vegetarians for that reason and even oppose lab experiments on mice. Elsewhere people hold that all life is somehow divine and sacred, and will not even kill a mosquito.
A Christian philosophy of life is different. God's life and being is totally distinct from anything created. Yet each of the numberless species of created life mirrors God's life in its own unique way. Each species, moreover, has a function to play in a cosmic harmony. The ancient and medieval notion that the harmony and balance of nature cries out to the observer that it is a designed plan that can only come from an uncreated Intelligence, is reinforced by recent international attention to environment and ecological conservation. Professor Oo stated in a recent lecture to the Nigerian Field Society that but for things like mushrooms and bacteria there could be no carbon monoxide and therefore no life on this planet. Everything is interdependent and has its purpose in the universe.
Yesterday, on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, we heard from Genesis that God gave man mastery over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the animals, the whole earth, and everything that creeps on earth (1:26). This commission has two important implications: One is that man is at the apex of physical creation and everything else is for his use. The other is that for living organisms which are not human the species must be respected, but the individual can be sacrificed to a higher good. The death of the insect is the life of the bird, and so on in the cycle of nature.
A medieval view expounded especially by the Arabic philosopher al-Fârâbî is that the hierarchy and interdependence of the physical universe is paralleled by a hierarchy and interdependence in human society. Similarly, on yesterday's Feast we heard applied to St. Joseph the words: "Who is the wise and trustworthy servant whom the master placed over his household to give them their food at the proper time?" (Mt 24:45).
The similarity between the physical universe and human society has, however, one major difference. In the physical universe the individual is expendable and can be sacrificed for the good of its species or that of another species, whereas in human society the individual and not the species is important. There are no expendable individuals; each human person is sacred. Many people in positions of power do not realize this; they would just as well see handicaped, mad people, refugees and unwanted pregancies dead, so that life can go on more smoothly for the rest.
In our case, we can find another person to be H.O.D. of Animal Science; a widow is free to re-marry; but we cannot find another Tommy Ekpenyong. Here is an individual whom God was eying from eternity, with a destiny of eternal happiness in mind. He accompanied him through his journey to the end. He was with him while he and his wife walked over that evening to console the Bodunrins and then walked back home, there to have a heart attack and be welcomed to his eternal home. God does not forget any one of us, even if our mother or father disowns us. Every hair on our head is counted.
Death appears to be a tragedy and for many is a test of faith, because the very individual life that God is supposed to value so much is lost. Yet we believe that life is not lost, but only transformed. Those who leave this life with faith and loyalty to God cannot possibly enter a state inferior to what they enjoyed in this life. Even if there happens to be some temporary purification before entering the presence of God, that state is better than this life; it is like a finalist who already has his result and is only waiting for graduation.
So we need not grieve. We have been given eternal life. "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (Jn 17:3). If the knowledge we have of him by faith comforts us now, the beatific vision, that all-satisfying view of God that awaits us, will make it impossible for us to want anything else. The bodily resurrection also awaits us, when our individuality will be complete.
God is life. Life goes on. To his wife, Georgina, to his children, to his sister, Mrs. Mposong, and to all I say: Let us celebrate the on-going life of Tommy Ekpenyong. And let us thank Jesus for coming that we may have life and have it to the full (Jn 10:10).
FUNERAL OF MARTIN KENNY
27 April 2005
Readings: 1) Lamentations 3:17-26 2) 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 3) Luke 24:13-35 Billions of people have come into this world and have gone, not leaving a trace. Maybe we can trace our ancestry back a few centuries, but they are mere names to us; we have no data on them. The callous conclusion is that the world is full of useless people and their lives are expendable—never mind what lies in store for them after this life. All that was in Jeremiah's mind when he told himself "my future is lost, all that I hoped for from the Lord."
A similar despondency had settled on the disciples on route to Emmaus. Just as we had hoped that Marty would get better and didn't, so they complained, "We had hoped... but they had him crucified" (Lk 24:20). The women's tale of the empty tomb and purported resurrection they did not find convincing.
The turnabout came when they discovered that the stranger they met on the road was Jesus himself, risen from the dead. Their minds and feet turned back to Jerusalem. His resurrection not only assured their own eventual resurrection; it also assured them that he would be with them, accompanying them throughout their lives, with all its adventures and dull routines, and that for a purpose.
Jesus said, "I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (Jn 15:16). We each have our own mission in life, as unique as our fingerprints or DNA, as unique as our own unduplicable personalities. Others depend on us, on how we perform, on what kind of people we are. Whether we succeed or fail, no one can substitute for us. For good or for bad, our performance will ripple through ages to come.
The same is true looking backwards. The stamp of our parents on our lives and character is something we cannot shake. Our parents were in turn shaped by their parents and so on backwards, even though we may know nothing about them.
As Catholics, we are neither isolated individuals nor prisoners of the past, but we are heirs of a tradition that has grown like the stream of Ezekiel (ch. 47), flowing out of the Temple as a trickle, getting wider and deeper as it goes along, until it becomes a huge river that no one can walk through. We are part of that mighty stream flowing over the whole earth to the end of time; we personalize what we receive with our own stamp and relay it to coming generations. Christ is personally accompanying us in this mission, helping us to make good our parents' or teachers' defects, making good our own defects and helping us to hand on a worthy and attractive model, built on love, to mold and evangelize the next generation.