TomBoucher Funeral
November 20, 2006
Sympathy to Tom’s family and friends…
When we gather for the funeral of someone as young as Tom, we frequently find ourselves faced with difficult questions. Often they are the “why” questions like: why does someone so young have to die? It seems that when someone so young dies, the sadness,sorrow and grief are very intense. And because of the circumstances around his death I suspect there is another whole series of questions and emotions that are racing around in our heads and hearts. Tom was a gentle, caring person. He especially loved his nieces and nephews. He had a tremendous sense of humor. He had family and many friends who loved him and reached out and tried to help him in many ways during his lifetime. He had family and friends who loved him enough to plan interventions and get treatment for his alcoholism. It was AA that let Tom back to the Catholic Church in Minneapolis. So we gather here today with all these memories, emotions and questions; grief, sorrow, and maybe some guilt as we ask ourselves, “Could I have done more to help him?”
Some who knew Tom best describe there feeling about him and his untimely death as a feeling of helplessness. There is nothing to be done now about his death.
Plain and simple we just seem to find ourselves in an unexplainable situation today. And when we find ourselves faced with the unexplainable the “why” and “how come” questions are not helpful. All we can do is acknowledge that today we find ourselves in the presence of mystery – a mystery that is truly unexplainable. As people of faith we know that the only response to this kind of mystery is to put our complete trust in God. The best we can do is be present to one another with forgiveness, tenderness, gentleness and to support one another with love, for forgiveness, tenderness, gentleness and love is the language of the mystery of our God.
We gather in faith today to commend Tom to our loving God and we can do that because we trust in God’s mercy and love for Tom and for each one of us.I once heard a priest at a parish mission talk about putting our trust in God. (Past = trust in mercy, future = trust in providence, Present = gift from God - AA = one day at a time)
God’s mercy and forgiveness is precisely what the parable of the lost sheep is about. There are times in all our lives when we stray like that lost sheep. This gospel reminds us that it is in those times that Jesus searches for us the most. Tom was one of God’s flocks, and for reasons that we will never understand he seemed to be lost and alone at the end. I pray that we find some consolation in the image of Jesus the good shepherd reaching out when Tom was lost the most and touching the deepest recesses of his heart with God’s mercy and love.
So today we put our trust in our loving and merciful God. We commend Tom’s lifeand our past life to the mercy of our loving God.We entrust Tom’s future and our future to the providence of that loving God. And we gratefully accept this present day with which God has gifted us. We accept this gift of this present day as an opportunity to forgive Tom, forgive ourselves and forgive each other as Jesus forgives - unconditionally. We accept the gift of this present day as an opportunity renew our commitment to love one another as Jesus loves - unconditionally. We have been gifted by God with this present day with an opportunity to embrace the unexplainable by reaching out to each other with forgiveness, tenderness, gentleness and love -for indeed, this is the language of the mystery of God.