"HOMILY OF ARCHBISHOP JUSTIN RIGALI - MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL FOR MARY BETH RICKEN" CATHEDRAL BASILICA OF SAINT LOUIS
26 January 2001

When a young couple gets married they stand before the altar of God and pledge to one another their love until death.  The priest reminds them that they are about to enter in to a union that is most sacred and most serious.  It is most sacred because it was established by God Himself, and most serious because it will bind them together in a relationship that is so close and so intimate that it will profoundly influence their whole future.  That future with its hopes and disappointments, its pleasures and its pains, its joys and its sorrows is hidden from their eyes.  They know that these elements are mingled in every life and are to be expected in their own.  And the priest reminds the young couple of the great dignity of their vocation, which is to communicate love to one another and, in this communication of love, if God so wills it, to transmit life - a life that bears forever and forever the imprint of their love.  And, in the communication of their love and in the transmission of life, there arises a fuller community of love, the family.

Gerry and Sheila Ricken, by their own love, have formed this community of love: their family, their children - Barbara, Heidi, William, Mary Beth.  Like every family, each member is destined to live with God forever in the communion of the Most Blessed Trinity in heaven.  Mary Beth has already begun this phase of her eternal life.  Her parents, her sisters and brother, her friends, so many of you here have helped her to prepare.  You have helped her by your love and your prayers to prepare for the great separation from this world, which is death, in order to meet Jesus and to be embraced by Him, by our Blessed Mother Mary and by all the angels and saints in heaven.

With great tenderness and love, her parents, in their sacred love, loved her as Jesus loved us, to the end.  They gave her life, they gave her love.  They knew that it was a part of their marriage covenant.   It actually involved immense suffering and pain, but none of this suffering and pain could equal the sacrificial love with which God endowed them and prepared them, from the moment that they received the Sacrament of Marriage, to shower love on their children.

Today we come together to pray, to express solidarity with the family and to proclaim our holy faith in Jesus Christ the Victor, the Conqueror of death, the Lord of Life. And, even in the midst of grief, we acknowledge God's wise plan of eternal life for all of us. We proclaim that our destiny is eternal life with God, an eternal life that begins here, but continues in heaven for all of us.   

We heard this morning the beautiful prayer of Jesus in the Gospel: "Father," He said, "all those you gave me I would have in my company where I am, to see this glory of mine which is your gift to me...." Jesus, in His love for us, wills that we participate, that we share in His glory, because all of us have been given to Him by His Father and He shares with us His life—eternal life—and His glory.

Saint Paul explains to us how this works. Saint Paul explains that, from the day of our Baptism in Christ, we were destined for glory, a glory that requires us however— all of us—to pass through the door of death as Jesus did, but a death that leads us to the resurrection of everlasting life. And it is our Baptism that links us to the death and resurrection of Jesus and it is our Baptism that is our pledge of everlasting life.

"Are you not aware," Saint Paul says to us this morning, "that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Through baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life."

This is, dear friends, what we proclaim today. We proclaim new life, eternal life, —forever—new life in Jesus Christ, because we have been associated through Baptism, through the Eucharist, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christian death, especially that of a young person, involves such pain, suffering and grief of separation, but it challenges us to Christian hope, a hope that is based upon everything that we believe, everything that we stand for. Because Jesus Christ loves us and has risen from the dead, we shall live forever. We are challenged, therefore, to hope in Christ, to trust in the power of His resurrection.

There is another challenge that death, and especially the death of Mary Beth, places upon us. It is the challenge to live, to love and to serve according to God's commandments, according to the teachings of Christ, to realize that we are loved by God and must love Him in return. And this love of God must be manifested in our families, in our parishes, our schools, our society. 

When I visited Mary Beth for the first time I was so taken by her faith and the faith of her family. I asked her on that occasion: "Mary Beth, in everything that you have been through, do you feel that Jesus is near you? Do you feel His presence with you?" And she answered me and said: "Oh yes. Oh yes. There are so many people praying for me. There are so many people that bring Jesus to me.~'

This is a magnificent reflection. And, dear friends, so many of you have been involved in this great mission—through your love—to bring Jesus to Mary Beth, to sustain her parents, to sustain the children. So many of you have given of yourselves in faith, in love, in order to sustain her in her suffering and in her Christian hope. Today is therefore also a day of Christian hope in the fullest sense of the word and this hope reminds us of the gratitude that is owed to all of you.

A very special word of gratitude to Father Tobin, who as Pastor of Our Lady of the Pillar Parish, was so close to Mary Beth and her family and brought the consolation of the faith and the consolation of the Church. And all the parishioners, all of you who in so many ways did what you could in order to assist, to help to bring Jesus to her, as Mary Beth said, by your love and by your generosity, by your smiles and by your inward suffering with her and with her family.

So many of you have been associated in prayer. We are very grateful to our priests who are here this morning. To Bishop Ricken, cousin in the family, who has come here from Wyoming to testify to his love and solidarity with Gerry and Sheila and with Barbara, Heidi and William. And, as we go forward, we know that our hope is not in vain, that the grief of separation gives way to the hope of immortality and to the profound conviction of our faith that, just as Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, so also we will walk in newness of life.

A very special word of gratitude to all her classmates, to all the young women of Saint Joseph's Academy who are here this morning. To her teachers, to all those who have been associated with her in her life. All of us now open our own hearts not in grief, but in Christian hope and resolution, the resolution not to fail, in order to follow Christ as Mary Beth did, in a way that could only be explained by the deepest convictions of her faith. It was because she believed, that she was able to live and to love and to serve in the way she did. All of you, dear classmates, dear young women of Saint Joseph's Academy, what a wonderful part this is now of your school and your history, the life and death and faith and love of Mary Beth.

Each one of you is challenged in a different way, but you are challenged to express the convictions of your faith and to live your lives according to the vocation that God gives to you, to live according to the teachings of Christ, according to the commandments of God. And then, in the vocation that is yours, whatever it may be, there will be a vocation of love, of sharing love, of sharing the love of God and of bringing Jesus—whether it be as parents, whether it be in families, whether it be in consecrated love and service, or in the dedication of Christian single life. Whatever it will be, it will involve Jesus and the hope of resurrection and it will involve the commitment to love and to serve with generosity.  

Our final word of gratitude is to God Himself who in His deep love, a love that manifests itself in mysterious circumstances and in a difficult situation—to God Himself who through Jesus Christ our Lord sustained Mary Beth, sustained her in love and peace and inner joy even when the suffering of separation was imminent. 

Her final legacy to her parents was to assure them of her love in response to the love that they have given her, the love that they had pledged before the priest on the day of their marriage, the love that they have communicated to their other children, a love that now lives on and that has been shared by the whole community, a love that is now challenged to express itself in ever deeper solidarity and service. 

We thank our Lord Jesus Christ for the victory of His death and for the gift of eternal life that He has offered to Mary Beth. And one day He will grant it to all of us if we follow faithfully His commandments and His teachings.

In the meantime we thank Mary Beth for the example of her love, and all those dear friends—all of you—who brought her Jesus in the moment of her suffering and in her trial and tribulation. Amen.