ARTICLES

Which Commandments, Lord?

Contracepting and Aborting Hedonists Are Going To Be Very Embarrassed

(Editor: Father Joseph Fessio, S.J. was reassigned in the Spring of 2002 from San Francisco where he had founded Ignatius Press, St. Ignatius Institute, and Campion College to serve as chaplain at Santa Teresita hospital in Duarte. By late June Father Fessio left Santa Teresita to serve as chancellor of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida.)

Dear Family and friends of Juana Delatorre,

It is a great honor for me that you have asked me to celebrate this funeral Mass for Juana Delatorre. I have only been a chaplain here at Santa Teresita for two weeks and already I have experienced what a tremendous grace it is to be able to give the sacraments of the Church to those whom God has called to himself.

And what a special blessing it was for me to be part of the last pages of the last chapter of the wonderful story of Juana and Jesus Delatorre. Of course, I don't know anything about all the trials and sacrifices and difficulties, or all the joys and blessings that made up their long life. But I know that as we all are the "glory of God" according to the great Church Father, St. Ireneus of Lyons, all of you are the "glory" of Juana and Jesus.

And what I know is enough for me to be humbled and to rejoice: 72 years of marriage, of faithfulness to one another; 14 children with immortal souls that will live forever; more than 100 grandchildren and great grandchildren. Juana and Jesus are heroes. Heroes of love and heroes of faith.

When I first met them, they were both on the verge of death. But one day Juana was in the intensive care unit while Jesus was in B wing. The next day Jesus was in the intensive care unit and Juana was in the B wing. The following day they were both in the B wing but in different rooms. I passed their granddaughter Leah in the corridor--it was our first meeting--and we both said to each other: they have lived 72 years together; they should be in the same room together as they prepare to go to the Lord. What God has joined, let no man separate!

Little Eddye Rodriguez, a 6-year old recovering from an operation on his broken leg, gave up his double room, room 206, so that Jesus and Juana could share it. And there Juana breathed her last on Monday. Jesus didn't realize it right away, so we brought Juana's bed next to his and told him what had happened. We knew when he finally understood. He sat up and groaned and cried and reached for Juana's hand. I put her dead hand in his and he grasped it and held it lovingly. For a moment it was my hand, the priest's hand, that was cradling the hands of these two faithful spouses. I will never forget that moment.

You know, we are all to some extent deluded by the world, especially the affluent, consumerist world we live in here. But if we want to know the real meaning of our lives, we need only to go to the very first pages of the Bible, where God himself tells us why he created each one of us.

In the book of Genesis, there are two accounts of creation. In the first account, in chapter 1, we read "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them". The greatest mystery of our faith is the mystery of the Trinity. And it is a mystery infinitely beyond our comprehension. But dark as this mystery is, it illuminates the deepest meaning of our lives. That God is entirely one; but that he is a community of distinct persons; that is, he is Love. It is not just each one of us as individuals that is created in the image of God. It is man and woman together that are the image of God as the love between persons.

And at the conclusion of this first account of creation, God speaks his very first word to his new creatures. And it is a command. The first and most fundamental command which shows us his first and fundamental purpose: Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. The mutual love of Father and Son is so fruitful that it brings forth a third infinite person, the Holy Spirit. And when God creates us in his image, when he creates us male and female, it is in the fruitfulness of marriage that we see the most perfect image of God in all creation.

In the second account of creation in Genesis, in chapter 2, God says: "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." Here we see God's intention that husband and wife be friends and helpmates, that they support one another in mutual love; that they be faithful to one another for life as the image of God's eternal, Trinitarian, faithfulness.

So you see, from the very beginning, God has told us that there are two ends or purposes of marriage which constitute his plan for the whole human race: that the man and woman should be fruitful and multiply; and that they should be faithful helpmates to one another.

Juana has now met her God and ours. We continue to pray for her because the salvation of none of us is assured. But when God asks her: "Did you keep my commandments?" and she replies, "Which commandments, Lord?," and he says, "My first, my most fundamental commandment, that you be fruitful and multiply," she will point to all of you. Many bankers and stockbrokers and doctors and lawyers and CEOs and contracepting and aborting hedonists are going to be very embarrassed when they can point to but one or two children--or none. But I think the angels and saints are going to break out in a thunderous chorus of joy and praise when Juana points to you. And when our Lord asks about his second commandment, to be faithful, she will say, "Lord I loved and honored Jesus--my beloved spouse named after your own son--for 72 years. And then if angels can weep they will weep for joy, as I did when Juanita died.

This would be a fitting place to end this homily. But that would leave one final, joyous task unfinished.

I said earlier that it was Juana's granddaughter, Leah, whom I met at the moment we were walking toward each other in the corridor with the same idea: to bring Juana and Jesus back together in the same room.

Later, when Leah and I had a chance to talk together, she told me that she was engaged to a fine young Catholic man and wanted to marry him in the Church, but that she was not yet baptized. There was sorrow in my heart as I looked at her, clearly so devoted to her grandmother, and thought that she would not be able to receive communion at this Mass, to unite herself even more deeply and mysteriously to Juana in the Body of Christ. So I asked her, "But you believe in God?," "Yes." "And in Jesus," "Yes." "And in the Catholic Church?" "Yes". Well then, Leah, I'm going to baptize you at your grandmother's funeral Mass! Leah accepted.

It may seem strange to have a baptism at a funeral Mass. But it really isn't. We are all baptized into the death of Christ. Juana's baptism was a death to sin and the beginning of a new life of grace in this life as a preparation and anticipation of the glory of the life to come. And her death, which we commemorate at this Mass, was her final oblation, her final act of self sacrifice, the seal of her union with Christ in his death -- which we also commemorate in this and in every Mass. And we pray now that as she died with Christ in the baptism into his death, she will live with him in the glory of his Resurrection. Death has separated Juana from us. But death has been conquered by the Resurrection of Christ. As Leah is baptized, she will join her grandmother across this great and sorrowful abyss of death. She will join all of us in Christ's one risen Body. And her Communion and ours will be the sign and pledge of our future glory, where we too will be, like Juana and Jesus, like Jesus Christ and the Church his Bride, one flesh, forever. Laudetur Jesus Christus! May Jesus Christ be praised.

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