The first reading for this morning’s Memorial Mass for Sr. Cherubim Cukla comes from the Book of Lamentations. Curiously, both the Lectionary for Sunday Mass and the Lectionary for Weekday Mass contain only one passage from this particular book of the Scriptures. So if one doesn’t attend Mass on Saturday morning in the 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle 2, the ordinary Catholic would never be exposed to this book in the context of our worship. One passage from the Book of Lamentations is included in the various choices for the Liturgy of Christian Burial. However, I did not choose this reading for today’s memorial because it is rare. I chose it because for me personally it is one of the most eloquent expressions of God’s mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures. “The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent; they are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness.”
It is that great faithfulness of which we sing in the responsorial psalm today. Like the writer of the Book of Lamentations, the psalmist cries out, begging God to hear the voice pleading for mercy. Similarly, the psalmist also moves from desperation to hope as he recalls that with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
The great French Franciscan spiritual writer, Thadee Matura, cited this passage from Lamentations in speaking of mercy as an essential part of the Franciscan charism of brotherly and sisterly love. In reflecting on the words of verse 22 and 23, he wrote: “The miracle of the divine agape is precisely the capacity never to despair, always to begin again, to keep on forgiving, and to know how to wait. This is mercy - the entrails of God which shudder and are renewed each morning.” It is this kind of mercy which Sr. Cherubim was called to live out as a Franciscan sister. It is this kind of mercy in which we place our hope as we commend Sr. Cherubim to God this morning.
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul uses his typical Aristotelian language to divide the human person into two separate parts; namely, the outer self and the inner self. He tells us that the outer self is wasting away and that the inner self is being renewed day by day. He goes on to say that the outer self is transitory while the inner self is eternal. For those who can only place their trust in the outer self, that which they can see, life must seem futile. However, for those of us who place our trust in God and in that which we cannot see, life is simply a moment of light affliction which produces an eternal state of glory beyond all comparison. It is this eternal state of glory which Sister Cherubim now experiences.
We know this because Jesus has assured us that this is our destiny. In the Gospel, we read of the death of Jesus. We meet Joseph of Arimathea who takes down his body, wraps it in linen, and lays it in a rock-hewn tomb. We encounter the women who come to anoint the body, but instead find the rock rolled away and an empty tomb. Jesus has been raised from the dead and, in so doing, won for all of us a victory over death.
At funerals and memorial liturgies it is customary to recount the many things that the dearly departed has accomplished in life. Indeed, in Sr. Cherubim’s life, much was accomplished. Yet it is not these accomplishments which we celebrate today. Deeds, even good deeds, are transitory and are part of the outer self. Instead we recall her faith in God’s mercy and goodness which prompted her to develop the inner self and thereby produce an eternal state of glory which she will enjoy for the rest of eternity. It is God’s faithfulness that urges us on toward the hope that one day we shall all experience the eternal life that she now enjoys.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator