Welcoming address by Fr. Gerry Powell P.P.

I welcome you to this funeral liturgy for Susan Teggart, especially her loving sons and daughters and all the family circle.

We all come here to remember a good person, to give thanks, even in our grief, Susan’s life, to offer each other, and especially her family and all those who will most miss her, the consolation of our love and our presence with you today; and to offer also the promise of eternal life.

Our consolation will be the happy memories we have of Susan; our sadness is that she has gone from us. Our sure Christian hope is that the Lord our God will welcome her home and that one day we will be united together in heaven. In the depth of our loss and hope we now pray and offer this Eucharist for Susan.

We come to God, knowing we need his mercy and forgiveness, and so in preparing to celebrate the Mass we call to mind our sins.

Lord, you suffered and died in our name. Lord have mercy.

Lord, your heart was moved with compassion for the sick and the bereaved. Christ have mercy.

Lord you suffer with your people at the right hand of the Father. Lord have mercy.

And may almighty God, have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and bring us to life everlasting.

Let us pray:

Almighty God and Father of all, you strengthen us by the mystery of the cross and with the sacrament of your Son’s resurrection. We pray for Susan grant her peace. Welcome her to the eternal joy of the kingdom and give us all new hope in our sorrow that one day we shall all be with you and with each other in your home where every tear will be wiped away. Grant, this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Homily

We gather here today in sadness with the family of Susan Teggart. Our thoughts are for you. We ask God to send his Holy Spirit to bring his peace to your hearts and to your homes. We give thanks to God for the long life that he gave Susan and pray in faith that he will welcome her home to everlasting happiness in heaven.

There is as the Scriptures remind us, a time for every season under heaven. As we gather in Laurencetown Church we reflect on the mystery of time and providence that are in God’s hands: there is indeed a time to die, a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to keep silence, a time to speak, a time to love.

Holding a wake for Susan, her family has shared memories of who she was and what she meant to them. We mourn her passing, we cherish her memory. Above all you have remembered the humanity of a good person. Today as we gather in sorrow to remember Susan. A burden of pain, burden of loss, burden of grief weighs heavily on you all. We gather as a community - our presence here today is our way of reaching out to the Teggart family.

Susan was born Susan Curran, from Laurencetown, and married Joseph Teggart who died 31 years ago. She was totally devoted to her husband Joe. So too she was so devoted to her family, all 17 of them what a family – to them she was a rock – a model mother; she did a wonderful job of raising them. She will be sorely missed too by her 49 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren. Memories.

We remember a lovely person with a great sense of humour, a lady who was a treasure to you all. Letting go of her today is not going to be easy, for Susan was a great lover of family, people and life itself. Thank you to all who cared for her and loved her in life. Now her long years of sacrifice and recent suffering are over. I have known her over the past year attending her every first Friday. As Susan has died now a part of you dies as well. You are filled with sorrow because her death leaves a gap that no-one else can fill adequately. When we remember her today we cannot help recalling the things she said and the way she said them, the things she did and her way of doing them but sadness is tinged with hope and expectation. We pray that she is with the Lord and we look forward to the day when we will be reunited with her. Christ’s resurrection assures us that if we follow him we will rise again. It is only with death that life really makes sense, it’s our leap into eternity, it is God calling us home to be with him forever. At a time like this we come face to face with our own mortality.

Living a truly Catholic life is about waiting in hope and as people of hope we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Susan’s period of waiting is now over. No one can say she got life easy. All those years of worry, loneliness and sorrow and rearing a very large family when times were hard have made of her life a pilgrimage of pain - a journey from birth to death and the reason she could see purpose in the pain or sense in the suffering was because Jesus Christ came on this earth to conquer death and save us from our sins.

She brought love, care and friendship to those who knew her. Always faithful to her Church, prayer with special devotion to St. Martin de Porres and fidelity to the mass and the sacraments were second nature to her. She died after her strength could no longer meet the challenge of life. Today then we bid farewell to Susan. Despite your sense of loss, you will face the future with courage and hope, knowing that that is what your mummy would want you to do. We comfort one another in the sure confidence that for Susan life has changed, not ended. We also derive comfort from the conviction that she is at peace with God.

With Fr. Mac Donagh, and the entire parish community I would like to extend our heartfelt sympathy to her loving family, Eileen, Molly, Robert, Desmond, Kay, Ann, Rosemary, Frankie, Marie, Jackie, Pauline, Gerard, Terence, Dermie, Vivienne, Bernadette and Martin, sister-in-law, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandchildren great-grandchildren, brothers Paddy, Sean & Tommy; sisters Annie, Kate, Jennie, Magdalene & Sadie & family circle.

Family Memories

There was always a blessed candle lit to St. Martin for someone every day as Mummy had wonderful faith towards him.

Mummy always started writing her shopping list on a Friday so that some of her many daughters could get her ‘bits and pieces’.

The tin was always full of biscuits when the many grandchildren called.

Mummy always took great pride in her home. She loved the garden and liked everything to be clean and tidy.

Mum looked forward to seeing her many children and grandkids and her last words to everyone going out was ‘when will you call again’.

Daddy died 31 years ago and Mum did a wonderful job of raising her 17 children. She will be sorely missed.