Fr. John Riccardo - Funeral Mass Homily for his Mother

the last time I was at mass with my mom here she fell asleep when I was preaching God's already taking care of that those were reading she wanted read my mom was constantly trying to teach people about Jesus and constantly trying to put people in touch with Jesus that's who she lived for and she truly had no greater joy than to know that her children walked with the Lord and she had a special message to young people and married couples particularly with regards to wherever we might find ourselves today maybe some of us are not doing what it is that we know we should be doing my mom lived that way for a long time and then she changed and she began to do what it was that she knew the Lord had called her to do and so even here today amongst us I know it's her fervent desire that some of us would leave here this morning committed to turning away from whatever it is we might need to turn away from and to embrace wholeheartedly what it is that God is calling us to do ordained as the news would tell us we're not ordained in thinking about mom and what it is that the Lord might want to say to us today through her life here's how I might describe it it's the story of a soul and of the relentless love of God for that soul and I kept thinking how timely her death is and her burial given all that's going on in the church right now with the crisis that we see and timely simply because my mom together with my dad quite honestly bore more fruit spiritually for the gospel than any bishop or priest I've ever met in my life people who grew up in this parish can testify to that they impacted countless lives for Jesus and it's a witness to all of us of what difference one person can make when they totally sell out for God a friend of mine always used to ask how many people here know Mother Teresa all of our hands would go up right how many people here know the name of the Bishop of Calcutta who do you think had more impact Mother Teresa or the Bishop of Calcutta and so the Lord can do extraordinary things with just one person who radically sells out for him so five words come to mind from my mom and what the Lord wants to say to us broken pursued healed used and conformed first broken my mom experienced two tremendous traumas in her life one was emotional and one was physical the emotional one was the divorce of her mom and dad which happened when she was young and it led to tremendous heartache in my mother and more than a heartache tremendous bitterness she didn't talk to my grandfather for years she didn't invite him to her wedding she sent back every gift he sent every letter unopened and the wound that came into her life as a result of her dad walking out on her mom and on her and her brothers leads to all the wounds that divorce leads to especially in a woman a young girl and it just led to massive insecurity and a sense of unworthiness and a sense of being unloved that was the first wound later in her life she suffered a physical trauma my mom had a horrific accident some years before I was born and it left her virtually an invalid so for the first 11 years or so of my life my mom lived in a in a hospital bed in our living room with special chairs and braces and had countless surgeries and I used to pray every day in front of that crucifix that I would have a normal mother that was the brokenness that opened up an opportunity for God to pursue her and he did pursue her just like he pursues everybody here with all the wounds and the traumas that we have in our lives despite the pretty faces that we put up and the cars we drive and the facades we wear and so God in a particular way used my dad to pursue her and pursue her he did and so my mom and dad met when they were at the University of Michigan they were leads opposite each other in a romantic play in a Spanish class and thus began this extraordinary love affair that lasted for 66 years in marriage and God used my dad to heal my mom to let her know how loved she was no matter what no matter how she wandered no matter her brokenness no matter her insecurities that's the task of marriage people that's the point of marriage the point of marriage is to make tangible and visible to your spouse the love and the kindness and the compassion and the mercy and the goodness of God that's what it's all about so much so that when we were back there when my dad had passed away and my mom was the last one to look at him before we closed the casket as she was sitting in her wheelchair she could look at my dad and say because of you because of you I know who God is that's why God brings a man and a woman together into married life so that they can help each other tangibly experience who he is and along the way heal both persons of all the many things that we all so desperately need to get healed of that then opened up my mom to an experience of God which led to my mom doing what we just heard in the gospel she was the one who says no I won't go and she didn't go but because of the witness of my dad my dad's prayer is the witness of my dad's faith and his love for her it brought her back which was the point of the pursuit and so my mom who was raised Methodist ended up coming into the Catholic Church in 1979 right after John Paul was elected actually I remember sitting in the living room with her and we were watching as he was visiting the United States and he was greeting a bunch of young people and the young people would come outside because John Paul was young he was almost my age he was just a couple years older than I am and he would sit there and he would twirl his staff and he would sing to the kids and this man who was so vibrant and magnetic and joyful and so she turned to my dad and me and she looks at my dad she says I have no more objections to the Catholic Church and became Catholic and years later when I was living in Rome and my mom and dad would come over often and we would visit they had a chance to meet the Holy Father in a small private audience because my dad did some work there and she was able to say to him it's because of you and God using you that I am in the church and then they mentioned that I was in the seminary with a couple of my brothers who were here and he looked at them and said thank you for your sacrifice she wrote me once saying I did not know what he meant when he said that but I know now so the Lord pursued her and in the pursuit of my dad the Lord healed my mom he healed her emotionally she came to know her rightful identity just like there's some of us here today who still don't know their identities we don't know who we are we don't know that we matter we don't know that God wants to and is pursuing us right now but he's desperately trying through friends through family through spouses to bust into our lives to let us know that that didn't happen for us that happened for me that happened for you personally and when I come to know that as she came to know that it heals that trauma that we all have I can remember father Bob specie and I we were studying together over in Rome we had an older priest friend a member who's saying to me shortly before I was ordained and he says John most people despite how they appear most people don't really think they have much good in them I didn't know how true that was at the time I do now and our task a parent's task a priest task is to find the good in them and then they just kind of hold it up in front of them and say you know you have this in you and wow it's good and I delight in it and when you do things like that people begin to sit up and so the Lord healed that wound in her and then he healed her back so my mom often times especially when you're young you read stories in the Gospels and you wonder why don't these things happen today well these are my sisters that's my oldest sister that's my middle sister this is my younger sister the youngest sister she's older than me 10 years older than me it tells you how old she is so my mom went from being an invalid as they'll tell you I mean an invalid - the most active woman I've ever known in my life my older sister and her husband Bob they came back from a prayer meeting one time as they were sitting there and said we're in the prayer meeting somebody had a word that went something along the lines of mom I just came back from this prayer meeting and someone there had a had a word that someone with a bad back God wants to heal I think it's you I said my mom's talking to on the phone and she says something like honey I wish I had your face she hung up the phone and then she says what the heck have I got to lose and so she started to thank God for healing her in two weeks my mom was playing tennis we built a tennis court in our backyard my mom joined a club she became club champ she went from motionless to always on the go I mean always on the go she went from bent over like this to the most erect upright person I've ever seen in my life she had amazing posture and then of course she couldn't stop telling people about who had done this my dad was moving up in his career at Chrysler and my mom was never with him my older sister was for many of the times and then all of a sudden my mom shows up who are you on film I'm I'm Rick's wife where have you been well I was sick but jesus healed me okay next conversation she just couldn't stop talking about him that's what happens so her her soul was healed her emotions were healed and her back was healed and then God used her that's the gospel she wanted with the gospel I would have used as the healing of Simon's mother-in-law if you remember the story in the gospel when Jesus comes into the Peters house and he walks into the house and the teller they tell him about Simon's mother-in-law and jesus heals her and immediately it says she got up and she served that was my mom my mom got healed and immediately she served she just said Lord I'll do whatever you want and she did together with my dad she became this extraordinary teacher of the gospel evangelist investor one of my nieces and I were talking yesterday about how she would constantly have my mom had her Bible open every morning in the kitchen table and she wanted us to see it she wanted us to know she prayed that she read the Word of God and when we would walk in as she was reading the scripture she didn't say hey this is my time leave me alone right now she would sit us down and say here's what I'm reading what's the Lord say to you and this and then she would invite us to go with her shopping anywhere not because she needed the company but because she wanted to pour into us that's what she did that's why that second reading was the reading she wanted she and my dad together knew there is nothing greater for a parent than to invest in their children and to help them be successful in the only thing that matters which is to come to a place where you make a decision personally to say jesus is my Lord - and so she poured her life out that way my mom didn't write letters my mom wrote the pisses I think all of my sisters and I I have every letter my mom's written in the last 25 years I brought - I'll give you an idea of how my mom would write I share this for for one reason mainly not just we can get a glimpse of my mom so that those of you who are parents will do this letter writing is a lost art but when I see her handwriting it means everything to me it's her with all the little smiley faces and again she wrote she didn't just say hey happy birthday here's some money she wrote like this it's impossible to put into words what's in our hearts as we daily ask our Lord to bless renew strengthen protect and fill you with his love for his people and grant you courage to continue to proclaim the good news of our salvation in with and through Jesus's cross death and resurrection we are so grateful to the father our father for having called you his son our son and we praise Him for the graces he has and continues to lavish upon us all and to enable you to surrender your life to his call to ministry and to help us hand you over in faith and in trust to his sovereign victorious will to save his people in a PPS she wrote one time after talking about how she loved to think of our lady how she pondered all that she saw Jesus do she says another fruit of my pondering although the umbilical cord was cut shortly after your birth the nurturing bond between us continues to nurture both ways from me to you and from you to me it is an eternal bond and I am eternally grateful to the father from whom each of us here received and continues to receive life through Jesus with Jesus and in Jesus this is not the end it is the ever ongoing renewing beginning thanks be to God that's how my mum wrote that's how he wants you to write invest in your children I beg you please invest in your children and that my mom after being used in countless ways by the Lord starting a prayer group here together with my dad some of the people who are here in church were part of that teaching people to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that the words of the Scriptures are no longer just words they come alive they change your life so that the sacraments become truly life-giving and impactful then my mom's pain came back so for 20 years roughly my mom had no pain whatsoever and then shortly before I was ordained I think it was 1996 all my mom's pain came rushing back and because the Lord had healed her once before he knew that he could heal her again but he didn't choose to and so people would often pray for her healing and my mom would say things like thank you but and then began my mom's real work many of you who have heard me tell stories of my mom's legal pads many of your names are on these this was my mom did we would call her and she and my dad would write down your names your marriages which were broken your children who had wandered from the faith your children who had taken their lives and she would write them here and when she heard which was all day long she would just read these and she would say Lord you know that I would rather not have what I have but I know your cross was not in vain it's how the world was saved and I know my sharing in it is not in vain and so I don't know how you're gonna use this Lord but use this pain I have as I fill up in my own flesh what's lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body which is the church and so if some of you who have had healing in your marriages or some of you who have seen dramatic transformations take place since you've known me it's probably because of her because such is the power of suffering when it's United to the cross of Jesus and then finally came the last two years or so of my mom's life so after my dad died my mom entered into a time of really extraordinary darkness just like Jesus on the cross entered into a time of extraordinary darkness so much so that he can cry out from the cross my God my God why have you abandoned me he hadn't of course and he hadn't abandoned my mom but such as what God does with a soul God's trying to conform us each and every one of us perfectly into the image of his son and my mom was allowed to share and to taste in that darkness in the last couple years of her life and what was going on inside her heart and her mind was something that was only known to God and so now she waits for that last part of Conformity she waits to be glorified and that's why we're here to pray the the good God the God who has pursued her all her life before he even created her will raise her body and soul from the dead and transform her and fashioned her with heavenly garments and clothed her with immortality and let her shine as radiant as the Sun and say to her for all the things that she has done all the ways that she's cooperated with Jesus's passion well done good and faithful servant those are the only words you want to live to hear when you hear that life was worth it if we don't hear that no matter what else we achieved we achieve nothing my mom would close every card she wrote me with an expression she heard from a woman that became a good friend of hers here at this parish it's a great expression until we meet again in prayer in the Heart of Jesus and so mom until we meet again in prayer in the heart of Jesus

Channel: OLGCPlymouth

Views: 31,588

Keywords: OLGC, Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, Catholic Church, Plymouth Michigan, homily

Id: 2DBjZ7gIKxU

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 19 2018