A holy funeral renews our life and hope

I attended the funeral of a saint today, Deacon Vincente Colon, and grace permeated the rest of my day. I know it flowed from the blessed event of his coming home.

O My God, how blind the world is in its fear of death! Death is a happy event.
- Blessed Miriam of Jesus Crucified

As a truly holy man, Deacon Colon left only holiness in his wake...those who knew him, met him even for a moment understood that he had found peace in the Lord. That peace was what glazed every event of my day--- and although the day was "ordinary" in every sense, it became extraordinary illuminated by the light of God's love and peace.
It was quite humbling to note that I do not often affect others with that same sense of peace. Lord, teach me to know thy ways!

And it was quite humbling to note that at the same moment another funeral was going on-- one for a man who was by every possible worldly standard a "good" and kind man. One who was interesting, funny, quick-witted and intelligent-- who wanted to make the world better and not worse, who wanted to ---and did--- leave his mark. This man was a secular, humanist atheist. And to really stop and compare the lives of these two men who were being buried in the earth this day, I had to acknowledge that the difference a life in the Holy Spirit can give two otherwise very similar men is like literal night and literal day. While I have wept with tears of sadness at the death of the latter, who died too young, too soon, and with too much "before him," so many more possibilities and things he could have done with his life, I instead wept with tears of joy at the funeral of Deacon Colon, who died too LATE, who was given us as a gift for just a little bit longer, to show us that he was ready and we could be too.

In the death of the latter, there was a sadness that cannot be described. In the death of the first, a hope, and a joy-- and a glory. May my death one day bring joy to those around me, a certainty of God's goodness.

Today, I opened my day with the prayer of St Patrick and a meditation on the life of the Blessed Mother, of whom Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a Carmelite nun, had said:

"In the heaven of her soul, the praise of glory has already begun her works of eternity."

Would that we would all be like Mary.