I welcome you to this funeral liturgy for Annie Moore. Especially her loving sons and daughters and all the family circle. Thank you to everyone who has consoled you in your great loss.
We all come here to remember a good person, to give thanks, even in our grief, Annie’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 Annie; 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 for Annie.SERMON
One of Ireland’s greatest writers and poets came from County Monaghan – he was of course Patrick Kavanagh. He wrote" In memory of my mother" and he relates some fond memories of his mother. He writes:
"I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily
Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.
O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us -- eternally."
A sad occasion like this today is an occasion to reminisce and to allow the mind to linger on moments from the past. Memories flood back of childhood experiences of being cared for, encouraged and loved. This is a time when gratitude for a loving mother wells up in the heart for a "job well done". It is a time of awakening to an appreciation of the gifts and blessings received. It is only in hindsight that the gift becomes clear. Life is lived going forwards but understood looking backwards.
Annie was born Annie Mc Kenna in Mulavilly in 1920. At a time of major change to our country, however in the rural areas it was still very much a poor and neglected way of life for many. Annie lost her own mother before her tenth birthday whilst her father went to work for the railway. She took on the role of mother to her younger brothers and sisters. Yet she took on life with a smile, giving up her own needs for others. Money was never any replacement for friendship – what little people had - they shared. Annie lived also in Kernan and Knocknagore. Always a great baker – she never used scales but generous measures were always her rule of thumb. Her husband Frank and the children were well looked after and the faith was passed on in Wellington Street in Lurgan where they lived.
The death of our mother brings a new kind of experience into our lives. Before such a death we were someone’s daughter or son but now we are orphaned. Even an adult can be orphaned. To be without a parent is to be in a strange and lonely place. And that’s understandable. For our mother is really one’s first friend. One’s longest first friend! No friend we will ever meet on life’s journey will have been so interested or committed to us. No other friend will have known our first step or our first smile or our first tear. No other friend will know us through and through in such an intimate manner as to be called by our name – a name which Frank and Annie Moore chose for you and gave you. They called you by name for the first time. Annie made you and shaped you. She lived for you.
She is with you in the way you walk and talk, in the things you enjoy and the things you fear, in the things you’re good at and the things you couldn’t do well in a fit; she’s with you in the way you think, in the very way you blink your eyes or move your hands, your every tic and mannerism. She is a part of you and will always remain so.
Very well respected by everyone. Very proud of all her family. A very generous person whom family, friends and neighbours enjoyed.
Annie was the heart of the Moore home whether in Wellington Street in Lurgan or in Churchview in Laurencetown. Home we all know is where the heart is and today the heart is not at home. The heart has gone to a different place. For it is true that today home is joined to heaven in a more profound way.
Annie whom you have loved has gone before us to our eternal home. And it is our home too. Annie has now gone around the corner from you and in different ways she has shown us some of the goodness that God puts into people. It was largely through her that God has been good to you. So we give thanks to God for her long life and it is with confidence that we pray to the same God to give her eternal rest.
To her family Annie was a rock – a model mother and grandmother.
We remember a lovely person, a lady who was a treasure to you all. Letting go of her today is not going to be easy for Annie 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 earthly life is over. As Annie 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. Annie’s period of waiting is now over. May the Lord welcome her to paradise on this Good Friday with the words:
"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master".
On behalf of Fr. Mc Donagh and the parish community I extend our sympathy to Annie’s loving sons Paul, Jarlath, Kenneth and Noel; daughters Monica and Angela; sons and daughters in law; sister Jean, grandchildren and family circle. May her gentle soul rest in peace.
