Funeral Homily for Margaret Josephine Lori
St. Anthony of Padua Church
Clarksville, Indiana
September 7, 2023
Introduction
Together with my brother Joe, I thank you for taking part in this sacred liturgy in which we will commend to the Lord of love and life the soul of our dear mother, Margaret Josephine. Mom lived an extraordinarily long life – as you know, she lived to be 103. She never worked out in a gym and never went in for diets or health fads. Mom lived simply. She shunned alcohol and tobacco. She ate plain food. She took a twenty-minute nap every day on the sofa and went to bed early. Mom prayed the Rosary every day and went to daily Mass whenever she could. And she kept herself busy, very busy, taking care of her family, but also volunteering at church and visiting the aged and infirm in nursing homes. With Dad, she was involved in Cursillo, the Secular Franciscans, & the Legion of Mary.
Dad was the love of her life and she was the love of his – a marriage that lasted over seven decades, 73 years to be exact. Although the organist snuck in the tune “Moonlight and Roses” during their wedding, (the pastor would not have approved), not everything was moonlight and roses. They were hurdles to be overcome and sacrifices to be made. Navigating care for Frankie, their eldest son with special needs, was a lifetime project, a vocation within a vocation, and they responded with love and devotion. To be sure, Joe and I exacted our toll on their love, and both of us will tell you that Mom and Dad would go anywhere and do anything to help us out in difficulty, to care for us, and to encourage us … while never pandering to our weaknesses – let me share two examples: When, as a newly ordained priest, I landed in a hospital in suburban Washington, D.C., the very next morning Mom appeared at my bedside. Another example: When it was time for me to drive back to Washington after a vacation at home, Mom sensed that I was troubled and needed a companion for the journey. She came with me on the trip and flew home, and she really disliked flying.
Mom continued to love her husband and her sons to the very end of her life. She always wanted to know how we were and what we were doing. She worried about us and told us to be careful, especially when driving. (I guess she remembered trying to teach me how to drive). She was also a woman of many talents – she was a talented painter, she could sew her own clothes, she knew how to use power tools, and when it suited her, she would repaint the inside of the house … a house that was always clean and nice but never fussy.
The Lord Has Done Great Things for Me
If Mom were sitting in the front row, by now she would be very uncomfortable. She didn’t like being the subject of my homilies, or any other public attention. By now, she’d be telling me to get to the point – which is not what she did but what the Lord did for her, throughout her long life. Beginning with the reading from the Book of Job. Job wished that his response to the Lord would be chiseled into rock forever. Mom knew how to use a chisel, but her response to the Lord was not chiseled in rock. Rather it was etched in a daily, flesh and blood confession of her faith in Jesus Christ. Even in moments when the future was uncertain and decisions difficult, Mom knew that Jesus, her Vindicator lived, and was the source of life and strength, the source of true wisdom and love, the One who loved her like no other. In her daily life of prayer, she longed to know and love the Lord more and more, and enlisted the help of the Blessed Mother and Padre Pio to help her.
That is why our response to God’s word was Psalm 63, a Psalm that speaks of a soul thirsting for God, the living God. It asks, “When shall I see the Lord face to face?” When I visited Mom for her 103rd birthday, she said to me, “Bill, I think it’s time for me to start living on the other side.” In her final hours, her breathing was labored and her mouth was dry. She could no longer drink water, but as her mouth was swabbed with moisture, I thought of Mom’s deeper thirst, her thirst for God. When she dreamed of her parents safe and happy in heaven, she was happy. This is the happiness she wanted for Dad and for her sons, and for anyone else she could influence to love and live their faith. May she, who frequently drew near to the altar of the Lord on earth, now share in the heavenly altar, the eternal paschal banquet of heaven!
Through thick and thin, Mom believed in the Lord and in his death and resurrection. St. Paul, in our reading from 2nd Corinthians, says, “Therefore we are not discouraged.” Like all of us, Mom experienced discouragement during her lifetime, but it never got the better of her – her faith and gentle spirit prevailed. Mom always managed to keep her eyes fixed on Jesus, and knew that the afflictions of this life were relatively brief compared to the glory that is promised us. In a word, Mom lived her whole life with a supernatural perspective. St. Paul tells us today that while ‘his outer self was wasting away, his inner self was being renewed, day by day.’ That is a good description of Mom’s final years. As time took its inevitable toll on her body, her soul was purified. Sitting in her room during the last two nights of her life, I could see how she touched those who took such good care of her. A number of her caregivers came to say goodbye to her and they were in tears.
Finally, we heard the Lord say, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…” Death, even of one as old as Mom, troubles our hearts, troubles them greatly, but Mom would be the first to tell us two things: not to take her salvation for granted, to pray for her, and to pray earnestly; and then she would tell us that we should set our hopes on our heavenly home. Mom was a homemaker. She provided a home that was comfortable and secure. And with all of her striving to do this and to do it well, she never imagined that her home on earth was anything more than temporary. No, she was determined to follow Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life” – the One who would bring her to her true native land, her heavenly home. We are here this morning to pray that Mom made it safely to that destination.
Mother Mary
We pray that Mom is reunited with Dad and Frankie and her parents and loved ones, but most of all that she beholds her Vindicator face to face in the halls of heaven. We pray too that she has met in person the Mother of the Savior to whom she prayed so earnestly and so often for Dad and her sons and loved ones. If, in the days ahead, you want to do something for my Mom, may I suggest that you pray a Rosary for her – that would make her very happy! And with the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and all the angels and saints, let us entrust her to our merciful Savior, the Lord for whom she thirsted, the Lord who was for her and for us, “the way, the truth, and life!” Joe and I thank you, dear Mother, and may you rest in the peace of Christ! Amen.