Homily: Funeral Mass for Patricia Curtin

Readings: Eccl 3:1-11; Ps 23; Rom 14:7-9; Jn 10: 14-15,27-30

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Claude, Diane and I, indeed, all of us here – we know how much you love your dear Patricia, and so, to you and to Sally, to Patricia’s nephews, Rich and Steve, and to all of your longtime friends, our deepest condolences. And I’m joined in this by Fr. Peter, Fr. John, Fr. Gerry, all your brother deacons and their wives – in truth, by the entire St. Vincent de Paul parish family.

Patricia was one of those rare people about whom we can say, “If you knew her, you loved her.” Our love for her just grew over the years, and it’s been almost 20 years since you and Patricia showed up that Sunday and asked, “Hey, need another deacon here?” How glad I am, how blessed we are, that the pastor and the parish said, “Yes, come join us!” Thus began our long friendship with this couple we’ve come to love.

Believe us, Claude, Patricia’s absence has left a hole in our hearts as well. I can only imagine how much you miss her, but if you let Him, God will fill this emptiness; He’ll fill it with His grace, bringing with it His peace and His enduring love.

Know, too, that we grieve with you. And yet, because of our faith, and because of your faith, we can look beyond our grief today. Despite our sorrow, we can be joyful that Patricia is now in God’s care, and to be cared for by our loving, merciful God…well, that’s a wondrous, powerful thing. I suppose St. Paul said it best, as he usually does:

“Both in life and death we are the Lord’s” [Rom 14:8].

Yes, we are His. And our Gospel passage from John sums it up beautifully, doesn’t it?

“I am the good shepherd…the sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” [Jn 10:14,27].

We belong to Him, and so He keeps calling us throughout our brief lives, but then embraces us as we enter eternity.

“I give them eternal life. They will never be lost” [Jn 10:28].

…and what a promise this is, a promise sealed and delivered with God’s love.

I suppose too many of us fall into that straying sheep category – you know, the ones He has to retrieve and bring back to the fold. But not Patricia. She followed the Shepherd, staying close, listening to His voice, and rejoicing in God’s love, a love she was determined to share with others.

Indeed, her kindness was eminently evident. Gracious and graceful, loving, creative, simply a good woman, and so much more. More importantly, Patricia Curtin loved God and neighbor, and in that loving she opened her heart to the movement, the workings, of the Holy Spirit. You see, she was a joy-giver. That’s right, she brought joy to those she encountered, just by being who she was. Diane and I were always happy in her presence.

And Patricia, as your wife, the wife of a permanent deacon, she shared in so many of those ministries. She joined you in hospital ministry visiting the sick. She played an active role in parish outreach at Our Mother’s Attic. And perhaps most importantly, she kept you on the straight and narrow, pretty much a fulltime job.

But Patricia had a professional life of her own. She earned graduate degrees in both French and Italian, and taught for 30 years in a community college in New York’s SUNY system – was a full professor and department chair. Now I know all this from personal experience. You see, the four of us would often dine at Taki’s, a nearby Greek-Italian restaurant. And Patricia would occasionally, but always with kindness, correct my Italian when I ordered off the menu. With this, Patricia became a model for all of us, proving that our working skills remain useful, even in retirement.

Thinking back over all these years of friendship, it’s all packed together: those dinners at Takis and so many other places – and there were many -- the holiday feasts at your home or ours. The good times shared with the Wilsons. The day trips to galleries, and museums, and your kindness when subjected to the intrusive lens of my cameras. Oh, yes, and the bottles of – how can I put this? – cheap wines, sampled here in Florida, and of slightly better vintages at those Finger Lakes wineries.

Yes, we visited Claude and Patricia at their lovely home on Seneca Lake. We didn’t want to leave, but eventually we took the hint. And it was on that trip I discovered they met in Paris in 1965. Coincidentally, thanks to the US Navy, I happened to visit Pairs that same summer, but inexplicably we didn’t run into each other.

Of course, your meeting in that city of light began it all and calls to mind everything that followed. And Claude, to recall that lifelong journey you wisely chose to do so through God’s Word in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Such a good choice. But such an atypical book of Scripture, more philosophical than theological, a book in which the balance of our lives is repeatedly stressed.

Ecclesiastes is really a book of thanksgiving, read in the autumn during the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. In it we thank God for His gifts, especially the gift of time, of all those times, in which we live our lives.

Times for laughter, and times for tears, times of healthy days and days of suffering.

Times for planting and starting, and times for reaping and ending.

Silent times for prayer and contemplation, and times for talking and sharing and embracing.

Happy times and sad times.

And yes, a time to be born and a time to die.

Sadly, for those who have not accepted the gift of faith, in this they see only an end. T. S. Eliot, among my favorite poets, once wrote, “In my end is my beginning.” And he was right: death isn’t an end; rather it’s a beginning, the beginning of our real life, an eternal life bathed in God’s love. Patricia knew this. She believed it with all her being. And because of her faith she’s now in the embrace of our loving, merciful God.

Realize, too, this funeral Mass is primarily an act of worship, but worship in the form of thanksgiving. We turn to our God and thank Him for the gift of Patricia Curtin’s unrepeatable life, a life we were blessed not only to witness, but also to share. But even more important, here today we gather in prayer, and Word, and Eucharist, thanking our God for the gift of His Son, Who gave His life for us, and renews that sacrifice right here on this altar.

Without this gift, we would have no hope: no hope of forgiveness, no hope of mercy, no hope of salvation, no hope of eternal life. It’s because of this gift that we can gather here today and not be consumed by grief. Because of this gift we don’t despair. Because of this gift we can go on. We can continue with our own lives knowing that Patricia, and you, and I – that we’ve all been redeemed by our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So many gifts from our God, a lifetime of gifts, relived by us through God’s gift of memory. And so, today, filled with hope, we hold close the memories of the past. It’s right to do so, to keep Patricia’s memory alive. We’ll continue to tell the stories, the stories that bring laughter and those that bring tears.

But today let us just claim and proclaim all that was good and noble and loving and faithful in Patricia’s life. And with that we’ll come to realize, the greatest thing she left behind is you, Claude, and really all of us whom she loved and who loved her! In a sense, we’re her legacy, her gift to the world, her gift to God. I can think of nothing better.

Today, then, we ask our Lord Jesus to take Patricia Curtin, his “good and faithful servant,” into His loving embrace, to take away the pain, to wipe away the tears, and give her the first taste of that eternal joy we all hope to share.

God love you all.