Fr. Sebastian’s Homily at the Requiem Mass for Marilyn McArthur

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by Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94)
Professor of Philosophy, St. Michael’s Abbey
Homily from the Requiem Mass for Marilyn McArthur 
November 12, 2022

 

The first reading was taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians:

“Brethren, we will not have you ignorant concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus dies and rose again, even so them, who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you, in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them who have slept. For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with commandment and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead who are in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive who are left shall be taken up together again with them, in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air. And so shall we be always with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort ye one another, with these words.”

We stand for the reading of the Gospel. The Gospel is taken from the Gospel according to John:

At that time Martha said to Jesus, “Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I now also know that whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it to thee.” Jesus sayeth to her, “thy brother shalt rise again.” Martha sayeth to Him, “I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus sayeth to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live. And everyone that liveth and believeth in Me shall not die forever. Belivest thou this?” She sayeth to him, “Yea, Lord. I have believed that Thou art Christ, the son of the living God, Who are come into this world.”

Before I came up for this Mass, I was at our abbey, and Cardinal Raymond Burke has been staying with us for a few days. And he heard about the death of Marilyn, and he asked me to pass on to you his assurance of prayers. He remembered both Ron and Marylin very fondly, he had met them on a number of occasions.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha was mistaken. For He who was not present in his humanity was indescribably present in His divinity. Of course, He had been there, but still, her brother died. Even for devoted servants of the Lord, there is a temptation to treat death as a sign that God is not present, or that He does not care about us. If we had read the entire passage of today’s Gospel, we would have heard three times that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus — as if to say you need to be reminded at the time of death: Jesus loved them, Jesus loved them, Jesus loved them.

Jesus loved Marilyn, and yet, He let her die. And He allowed us to feel the sorrow of that passing, and Jesus loves us. The truth is that no loving father is willing to let his child be in pain unless it’s the only way to bring about some greater good for that child. Throughout the Scriptures, Jesus is often making arguments a fortiori: “If you, being wicked, know how to give good things to your children, how much more does your Heavenly Father know how to give good things to his children?” We treat the Lord as worse than a wicked, unjust judge. We think He cares about less than He does the lilies of the field, the grass of the earth, which grows today and is thrown in the furnace tomorrow. Yes, that’s how we think about God. Jesus told us that that’s how we think about Him in the Scriptures. It should not be that way.

So the truth is that God is present, God was present in the death of Marilyn. And it was an expression of his tender love. It must be a very great good, indeed, that God willed to give to Marilyn and us, by allowing her to undergo the evil of death. For so great an evil requires a greater good that God must bring forth from it.

Now, I am preaching to the choir, of course. We all believe in the resurrection. But so did Martha in today’s gospel. “I believe in the resurrection; I believe my brother will rise on the last day,” said Martha. You would have that that would have been a credo, a testament of faith, that was sufficient for the Lord. But Jesus does not allow her to stop there; her faith was still imperfect. After she confesses her faith in the resurrection, Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

And with whatever faith we may have in the resurrection, our faith may still be imperfect. Do we truly believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Jesus and the Apostles always refer to death as sleep. And that’s not only because it’s as easy for Christ to raise the dead as it is for us to wake someone who is asleep, but also for another reason: Just as those who are tired and fall asleep fall asleep because they are weary — and they need the sleep in order to rise again and be invigorated — so, too, those in Christ grow weary of this life. We were not made for this world; the longer we’re here, the more weary we grow of this life. It is not our home; it is not for us. So, we need to fall asleep in death, to rise again fresh and invigorated.

“Would the College have existed had it not been for Marilyn? I have my doubts.”

A few weeks before Marilyn’s husband, Ron, died, he asked to see me — he was in the hospital — and it was very funny the question he asked. He said “Father, is it alright for me to want to die? Is it alright for me to want to die?”

I was surprised he would want to ask me; I thought he knew. But I asked him, I said “Well, why, do you want to die? Do you want to die because you’re afraid of the sufferings between now and then? Are you running away from something in this life?” He said, “No. Because I want to see Christ.” I said “Of course, of course it is OK to want to want die, if that is in your heart.” And that was in the heart of Marilyn. She grew weary of this world. She longed to see Christ; she wanted to see her husband, Ron, and all the saints. So, for the true Christian, death is as welcome as sleep for the weary traveler. It is we who are left behind who mourn.

Although we have this great faith in the resurrection, we still have our duties to do here at this Requiem Mass, and, as we continue throughout our lives. Our first duty is that we need to pray for Marilyn. That’s the one thing she said when I saw her, and she said, “Father, will you offer my funeral Mass?” I said, “I’d be honored!” “Father, ask for prayers. Make sure they all pray for me. Indulgence prayers, I want indulgences!” Your prayers aren’t good enough, we need the angels and saints and the excess merits of Christ and Our Lady in order to pray for Marilyn.

Someone was asking me my theory about why it is that, in a traditional Mass, the homily comes at the end for a requiem rather than in the middle. I said I think it is because the Church wants us to cut to the chase; we want to get all those graces from the consecration right away to the souls in purgatory. So, I should probably make this homily shorter! But one of the very first things we read on this campus was the Book of Job. And in the book of Job, it says “Even the angels were not pure in God’s sight. What about we, vessels of clay as we are?”

So, Marilyn deserves our prayers, and we are obliged to pray for her. And I make one request for every adult here in the church: I ask everyone to try to obtain a plenary indulgence for the soul of Marilyn. There are many ways you can do that: a Rosary in common (many of you just said one before the Mass), a half-hour of reading Scripture devoutly, a half-hour before the Blessed Sacrament, Stations of the Cross; those are all ways to obtain a plenary indulgence. And so, I ask everyone here in this church to try and obtain a plenary indulgence for Marilyn. Now there are the usual conditions. We have to say prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father. We have to receive communion within two weeks before or after the indulgenced act, we have to go to confession within two weeks before or after the indulgenced act. And, we have to be detached, at the level of our will, from venial sin. That means a real, firm intention avoid even venial sin in the future. And if we do that, we will obtain a plenary indulgence for Marilyn.

A second thing we do here is that we are here to console one another. Now, normally at funeral Mass, the first few pews would be filled with the children, the brothers and sisters of the deceased. I don’t know, Marilyn might have outlived all of her siblings — I’m not sure if there’s anyone here who is a sibling — but Ron and Marilyn’s children are here. Spiritual children, those who loved Ron and Marilyn like a father and mother, who were cared for by Ron and Marilyn as if they were their own children. Their hearts were too big not to have children.

“She stretched out her hands to the poor and the needy, she stretched out her heart to so many that became her children.”

As a priest, I know well how close the heart of spiritual father can grow to his sons and daughters. I know how close the heart of Ron and Marilyn grew to all of you here, and we console one another. In a special way, I believe Cathy needs our consolation. She more than anyone cared for Ron and Marilyn better than any daughter ever could. We want to assure her of our prayers, our welcome. All of us should make a special effort to reach out to Cathy, to spend time with her, to show her our love.

Now last of all and most importantly, we have the obligation, the duty, to give thanks to God for the life of Marilyn. Every man, every woman, has come into the world to reflect in a unique way the goodness of God. And each one of us has received some great grace through the life of Marilyn. Many of those graces we don’t even know about. How many prayers did she say for us that we never knew, and yet we receive their effects, their benefits. And then, to think about the College itself: Would the College have existed had it not been for Marilyn? I have my doubts. Her husband would not have dedicated himself to the founding of this college unless she consented and added her sacrifices to his. It was a great sacrifice for Marilyn, to allow her husband to do what he did.

I think often of the comparison of Christ and Our Lady at the Cross. Our Lady had to consent to the sufferings of Christ. There, Jesus hung upon the Cross, the fruit of her womb on the new Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the knowledge of God’s goodness and man’s evil, the Cross. And I suppose that Satan tempted her, as he once tempted Eve, “Pluck the fruit from the tree.” Everyone else was saying to Jesus, “Come down from the Cross.” The pharisees, the soldiers, the wicked thief. Jesus would not come down at their request. I’m not so sure if Mary had asked, what He would have done. But she never asked, she consented to His sacrifice. And in a similar way, Marilyn consented to the sacrifice that Ron had to make, in order to fulfil his vocation in his life. Her vocation was so intimately bound up with his. She supported him. She was strong for him.

I asked Cathy if she had any thoughts about Marilyn that I could weave into the homily, and she said, “Marilyn was like the woman of Proverbs 31.” So, I went, and I looked up Proverbs 31, and I was amazed at just how accurate a depiction it was of Marilyn:

“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband dost safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.”

Was that true of Marilyn, how Ron’s heart trusted in her. He had no need to get support from another. He received such great support from her, and he trusted her so much.

“She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She makest herself coverings of tapestry.”

I found out that in the early years of the College, she literally sewed the curtains for the dorms: She makest herself coverings of tapestry.

“Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land.”

Yeah, Ron got all the glory. He was sitting among the elders, and there was Marilyn, sitting back, watching her husband, known in the gates.

“Her children rise up and call her blessed.”

Here they are, calling her blessed today, praying for her soul.

“And her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

I don’t know if Ron’s already enjoying the Beatific Vision, but I have made it a habit to pray for his intercession on a number of occasions, and a number of very improbable prayers were answered whenever I asked for his intercession. I have a little crucifix he held when he was dying, and I hold that when I pray and ask Ron for his intercession. So I expect that, at Marilyn’s death, Ron stood up and he praised her; he was among the angels that welcomed her.

“Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the LORD; she shall be praised.”

Indeed, Marilyn feared the Lord, making great sacrifices just to go to a reverent, holy offering of the Mass, even in her infirmity and old age.  The passage in proverbs concludes:

“Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her at the gates.”

This is our prayer to God for Marilyn today. O Lord God, give Marilyn the fruit of her hands. She stretched out her hands to the poor and the needy, she stretched out her heart to so many that became her children. The Book of Revelation assures us that our good works will follow us, and may her own works praise her in the gates of Heaven.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

 

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