Funeral of Little Emile: the entire homily

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the St-Esprit. So be it.

Dear Colomban, dear Marie, dear family and all their friends, their loved ones, dear brothers and sisters who have come to surround them with your prayer and your affection, today, the church accompanies a father and a mother to the terrain From their little boy, Émile, who has since become his baptism, alas solely, a darling son of God, a child beloved from the Church, a brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. The happiness of knowing it in heaven does not of course make the pain of this tragic tearing disappear, but it allows Christians that we are not to become crazy about this valley of tears. It is therefore in Christians that we approach this difficult day, and the elements of joy, true joy, that we are manifesting in the midst of our pain are frankly incomprehensible by many people, including good people, and people of good will. And yet, it is very true that everything is not only misfortune and sadness since faith and hope give us happy certainties, and you can even testify, Colomban and Mary, of the delicacy of heaven throughout this test. Christ, Notre-Dame and a few saints from the sky to which you turned to experience this drama with you, and helped you wear your cross.

We celebrated the purification of Mary last Sunday and the presentation of Jesus to the temple, according to the law of Moses, and this celebration at the same time joyful and sad in a way, comes particularly to accompany the burial of Emile. St. Joseph and Notre-Dame had come, joyful, to submit to the ceremonies required by Jewish law, 40 days after the birth of the Jesus child, offering in particular two small doves in the acquisition of a firstborn boy whose The Lord demanded property since the liberation of the Hebrews in the country of Egypt. The Prophet St. Simeon then gave thanks to God to have seen the Messiah expected by all Israel, light to enlighten the pagan nations, we heard him at the moment, then the Gospel continues beyond the extract that we heard at mass. Siméon warns the mother of Jesus that a sword of pain would pierce her heart later, because this beloved son comes to accomplish the scriptures and redeem the faulty humanity by the sacrifice of the freely consented cross, out of love. This liturgical celebration thus ends the Christmas cycle, still recalled by the preface to mass, end the time of childhood innocence in a way, to introduce us into the mystery of the redemptive cross, reason of birth of Jesus, the reason for the embodiment of God in the midst of us.

Dear Colomban, dear Marie, the choice of this votive mass was facilitated by some striking similarities with what St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary experienced. It is also for you, today, the end of Emile’s childhood cycle. You will bring its small body to the ground, this body unfortunately found partially on March 31, Easter day, day so when you learned that its soul had already reached the whole eternal happiness of heaven. Since then, the greatest misfortune for parents, the definitive terrestrial separation of with a child, and the greatest happiness in a way, namely the absolute certainty that this darling son is with God where he is waiting for you . O my God, that your mysteries are unfathomable, that the swords of pain are acute in this world, that your plan escapes us!

We cannot of course say everything, communicate everything, this delicacy of the sky that accompanies you. However, note that the liturgical calendar will soon deliver another personal message. On February 11, in three days, we will celebrate the appearance in Lourdes de Notre-Dame in Ste Bernadette, and it is a party that comes as responding, as to complete the festival of purification of the Virgin which we were talking about moment. Because indeed, if Mary humbly submitted to the law of Moses, she did not have to offer, she, of sacrifice for sin, and she will come to proclaim him in Lourdes with this title of Immaculate Conception that ‘Church deposited on his forehead as one of his most precious crowns. But the personal message I told you about is not this one.

This message that you must take for you is the promise that was made to Ste Bernadette: “I do not promise you the happiness of this world but of the other”. The Virgin Ste does not tell her that she will not be happy in this world, she tells him that happiness in life cannot come only from purely terrestrial joys, and even that he is therefore in the midst of the trials of this life. She reminds him that Jesus promises his disciples a real happiness, a joy that no one can delight them, but which is distinguished from the joys of this world, so noble that they can be. So, when these terrestrial joys are lacking, sometimes so cruelly that we have trouble seeing the expression of love that God continues to carry us, then, we must remember that Jesus is always there, suffering, with We. Yes, he asks us to wear crosses in this world. But the one who makes the crosses, or who lets the men load them on our shoulders, this one also makes the shoulders to wear them, and he comes to wear them with us.

Dear Colomban, dear Marie, three days after the grave of today, the virgin of Lourdes, mother of the risen, will therefore turn to you. You all attend these parents of your presence and your prayer, ask I beg you to Notre-Dame the strength these parents need to continue living with the two other little children that God entrusted to them in his goodness and that It is up to them to raise, surrounded by the delicacy of the saints and the affection of their family. And you, parents of Emile, since the good Lord asked you, in turn, to accept the sacrifice of a first born son, think that he gave you a particular intercessor to him. Two thousand years ago, the old man Simeon brought with gravity in his arms the creator of the whole world, the weak creature having only a breath of life carried this all-powerful who in fact supported him since his conception. In a few moments, the priest will raise the consecrated host, visibly carrying the host to present it to the worship of the Assembly and in reality clinging to it with all its human fragility.

This little Emile that you used to carry is now support for both of you. With his short life since his baptism and his recall to God before the age of reason, he is not the greatest saint in paradise, but he is certainly with God where he adores the glorious trinity endlessly in the company of the angels and the crowd of saints, and where he intercedes for those he knew here below. Yes, with Emile’s departure for paradise, your life has taken up height. To use the happy expression of a Dominican Father, in this marked place of the presence of this religious order, since this last day of Easter, the sky is for you even less a distant place only populated by angels, of known saints known or unknown and mysterious god. The sky has become more familiar to you, you now know Emile there, you see the family house of any Christian better, the upper floor of your house where you can hail this son, and from top to bottom, the memory, the help, calls are answered.

My very dear brothers who came to pray with the family, receive the thanks from Marie and Colomban, you still show today one of the aspects of the communion of the Saints. Mass will be followed immediately by the burial of Emile in family intimacy, the most poignant moment of the day, a difficult moment when we will need the momentum of this beautiful mass. In particular, Émile having nothing in his life which he must be absolved, mass will not end with an absolute during which one would have prayed for his deliverance and his entry into celestial glory and to which all the assistance would come join by blessing the coffin. Only the closest parents will bless the coffin. Then together we will sing Psalm 23, triumphant song of the church rejoicing to count one more saint in heaven, before ending the ceremony with a last prayer recalling the reason for all this mystery of Christian joy in the middle of ‘Human test: this child who has been removed from us has entered paradise, and Christian hope invites us to do everything to find him.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the St-Esprit. So be it. »»