Holiness comes in many shapes and sizes

For decades, Mary-lynn Murray was the heart of the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s Chancery office. Bishops came and went, but “ML” was the cornerstone. As office manager, she was the primary Chancery contact for the archdiocese’s priests. More than that, she was their mother, affectionately referring to them as “her boys.” She recently lost a heroic battle with cancer. On Oct. 16 dozens of priests of the archdiocese turned out to honour and pray for her at her funeral Mass at St. Francis de Sales in Burnaby. Also in attendance were Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, Bishop David Monroe, and Msgr. Gregory Smith, who delivered this homily.

BURNABY—When Mary-lynn was young and healthy, she took great interest in planning her funeral. When she died, we expected to find a complete set of instructions for today’s liturgy. What we found was a document from 1999 that had little more than her choice of songs. (You will notice the hymns today are all from that era!)

So I don’t have any words from my dear friend to guide me this morning. What I do have is the memory of a visit with her early one Sunday morning a few weeks back. The hospital breakfast was particularly appealing and it was hot, so I asked if I might cut up her French toast since she couldn’t use her right arm.

I can’t describe the look she gave me—I think it’s usually called a “withering” look. Certainly it’s the look she’d be giving me throughout this homily, because I fully intend to use Mary-lynn’s life and death to illuminate these Scriptures we have just heard. She wouldn’t much like that.

For starters, she had a good deal in common with Job, whose physical sufferings are the Old Testament’s worst. Like him, she complained little. And although we failed to find her final testament, Mary-lynn could very well make Job’s words her own: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed then in my flesh I shall see God.”

Her long illness was at times both tough and painful, yet she endured it with a grace that would have done credit to Job, and with good humour even in very difficult times.

In our second reading, St. Paul speaks of the body as an earthly tent. Although I haven’t gone camping for 40 years—and hope I never do so again—I have a vivid memory of the unreliability of tents. They sag, they leak, and they blow over in the wind.

Our earthly tent, or dwelling, is a body subject to suffering, illness, and death. St. Paul is talking about the same thing in the previous chapter of this letter when he says we hold a treasure in fragile clay jars. He also reminds us that our outer self is wasting away.

Yet the Apostle makes these sober observations only to illuminate the other side of the story in all its splendour. Our outer nature is wasting away but our inner nature is renewed each day. The fragility of the earthen vessel of our existence makes it clear that glory and power belong to God and come from God, not from us.

And in the words we’ve just heard, St. Paul tells us that our earthly dwelling tent will be replaced by a building from God, an eternal home where “mourning and crying in pain will be no more,” as we read in the Book of Revelation.

Sometimes the old familiar phrases we use to comfort one another contain profound truths. Mary-lynn’s sister Fran said to me, “She’s in a better place.” That is virtually a homily on the second reading.

The Gospel goes in a different direction. It doesn’t direct our thoughts to Mary-lynn so much as point them in the direction she’d want us to go. “Do not let your hearts be troubled” is a sentiment that this remarkably positive and joyful woman would speak to us now, though probably in more down-to-earth language.

Her faith was not of the pious variety, and she had very little time for those who were more pious than pleasant. But her faith was real, and it was deep, and one spiritual lesson she leaves with us today is that holiness comes in many shapes and sizes.

The second reading, where we are promised a building from God – a house not made with hands – shows us the big picture. But the Gospel speaks of many dwelling places, a great reminder God takes delight in our individuality. In a book that I gave Mary-lynn and which she liked, the French writer Father Jacques Phillippe warns that many of us are tempted to believe we would make spiritual progress if only our circumstances were better.

This is often an error, Father Phillippe says. Neither our circumstances nor our personalities and imperfections are obstacles to holiness. He quotes Ste. Thérèse of Lisieux who said, “the love of God turns to profit all that he finds in me, the good as well as the bad.” Even Mary-lynn’s foibles brought life and humanity to the sometimes-stodgy corridors of 150 Robson Street.

On this sad day, the Gospel offers us the gift of peace, by turning our thoughts to Jesus himself, who personally draws each soul to the Father. Thomas’s confusion should not be ours; we know the way because we know “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Such knowledge leads to peace.

Searching for and Maintaining Peace is the title of the little book Mary-lynn liked and I think I couldn’t do better than to end with some words from Father Jacques Phillippe: "One thing is certain: God loves our dear ones infinitely more than we do, and infinitely better. He wants us to believe in this love, and also to know how to entrust those who are dear to us into his hands."

So, as this funeral liturgy continues, let us believe in God’s love; let us walk by faith, not by sight. Let us have confidence that our Redeemer lives and that we, together with Mary-lynn, will behold him at the last.

And let us entrust her to the loving hands of her Maker, whose Church she served with such loyalty and love.

Msgr. Gregory Smith is the pastor of North Vancouver's Christ the Redeemer parish and director of the Archdiocese of Vancouver's Permanent Diaconate Office.