The Funeral Mass for Ann Schaddel
Dear brothers and sisters,
The timing of Ann’s death is, for those who live by faith, no small comfort. She died on May 8th, the day the Church celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, the daughter of Saints Joachim and Ann. It seems fitting to us that our Ann departed this life on the day the Church celebrates the Blessed Virgin’s birth into it, but why?
We might be tempted to think this a mere coincidence, but, as Pope Saint John Paul II said, “In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences.”[1] What, then, does God, in the workings of his care for us, want us to learn from this?
Saint Ann gave her daughter the name Mary, a name that means “Star of the Sea,” a title mariners gave to the Morning Star – Venus - which guided their travels across the waters. Although we live on the midwestern plains, we can say that
Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by — people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. John 1:14).[2]
The first Christians therefore recognized Mary as their Morning Star whose birth and whose life guides them toward the true break of day, to the Sun of Justice – Christ the Lord – who never sets (cf. Malachi 3:20; Isaiah 59:10).
The Church recognizes Mary’s birth as the beginning of the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy given to the tempting serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel” (Genesis3:15). Because the only begotten Son of God would take flesh in the womb of Mary, the daughter of Saint Ann, her birth is, in a certain sense, the “daybreak of salvation” (cf. Luke 1:31, 35; John 1:14; Revelation 21:3).[3]
This is why the Church prays the celebration of Mary’s birthday “may bring deeper peace to those for whom the birth of her Son was the dawning of salvation.”[4] His incarnation in the womb of his mother was the foreshadowing of the promise Saint John heard would be fulfilled at the coming of the new heavens and the new earth: “He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). If Mary showed us the only Son of God in this life, she who is now in heaven can also show us her Son in the life to come, who promises to be with us not just in this earthly life but for all eternity.
Throughout her earthly life, Mary remained always near her Son, even to the extent of being present at his Crucifixion. From the Cross of her Son, Mary “received the word of Jesus: ‘Woman, behold, your Son’ (John 19:26)! From the Cross [she] received a new mission. From the Cross [she] became a mother in a new way: the mother of all those who believe in [her] Son Jesus and wish to follow him.”[5] In that moment Mary became the mother of all the adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus, united as they are to him through Baptism.
Saint Augustine tells that when Jesus, while hanging of the Cross for our salvation, entrusted his own mother to the care of Saint John, “The good teacher does what he thereby reminds us ought to be done, and by his own example he instructed his disciples that care for their parents ought to be a matter of concern to pious children…”[6] Nancy, Jack, Cathy, and Tammy, this is why you have brought your own mother here to the altar of God for the last time.
Because of your own loving devotion toward her, you are entrusting to the Lord Jesus so that, having cleansed her from every trace of sin he might say to her, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation21:6). You have come to pray she might receive not simply a vision of the new heaven and new earth seen by Saint John, but its final fulfillment (Revelation21:1). You have to come to pray that she receive the fullness of the promise begun in the womb of the Virgin Mary, that Ann might be forever with God and God forever with her (cf. Revelation 21:3).
Let us, then, entrust her to “the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ the Lord, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever.”[7] Because Ann was united to Christ in a death like his in the saving waters of Baptism, and because she was fortified with the Sacraments of the Church in her last moments of this life, we can have confidence that he will place her on his right, for her name is written in the Book of Life (cf. I Peter 3:21).
May Blessed Mary say to Ann the very words she heard from the Archangel Gabriel: “Do not be afraid” (Luke 1:30). May Blessed Mary lead Ann to her Son, who is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” that having died with him she might live with him forever (cf. Romans 14:8). Amen.
[1] Pope Saint John II, Address at Fatima, 13 May 1982.
[2] Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, 49.
[3] Roman Missal, Prayer after Communion for the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
[4] Roman Missal, Collect for the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, 50.
[6] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 119.2.
[7] Roman Missal, Exultet, from Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord.
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