Funeral Homily for Johnny Williams, February 24, 2006

"The true light which enlightens every man [was coming] into the world." Jn 1:9

Our Creator has so fashioned the minds of men, of believers and non-believers alike, that they rejoice when they are in the possession of the truth. For this reason, our holy Catholic faith fascinates the mind and gives joy to the heart. When one is steeped in the true faith, when he lives in God’s grace, he carries about within him a radiance which cannot help from being noticed in his face, in his eyes, in his voice. It is because there is a correspondence of our nature with God’s truth that we are glad only when we have the truth.

Those of us who enjoy the immense blessing and benefit of the Catholic faith know this, if not explicitly, at least by an intuition. For we have known the peace, the stability, the joy that come from our union with Christ. And we also sense that outside this blest light of the faith, there are anguish and desolation, even if we ourselves have been spared from experiencing them. As Scripture says, God rescued us from darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of Christ in whom there is redemption and the remission of our sins (cf. Col 1:14). We cannot hope to have a good greater than this.

My thoughts turn towards these things as I think of Johnny Williams, a man who, by the evidence of the number of his mourners, had made a deep impression on an impressive number of people. How is it that one who was somewhat socially diffident and humble attracted so many and sparked such wide admiration? The explanation is not to be found only in the kindly and warm disposition of his manner and graciousness of his words, but in the sincerity, goodness and genuineness of spirit that prompted them. Without artifice or affectation something important was communicated, mediated by him, and found very agreeable. It is the inner and spiritual condition of a man that–unwittingly–seeps out into his exterior life. Scripture says that "a glad heart lights up the face" (Prv. 15:13): the indication that this indeed is so.

But under the exterior humility and simplicity of this man there was concealed a very ardent desire. Beneath a man talented in carpentry and art was a soul whose great ambition was to become a saint. He expressed this desire only privately, of course, but it explains what drew so many to him. Although he was a family man and a working man, his was the spirit of a contemplative. His daily Mass and Communion, daily rosary, habitual reading of the bible and his use of his prayer book, the many hours of Eucharistic adoration–these are all the more remarkable when one remembers that Johnny was a convert to the Catholic faith. His special affection for Holy Mary, for his patron, Saint Joseph, for Saint Therese, and his firm adherence to the Catholic faith are aspects of devout practice that were once typical of a born-Catholic man of generations past. And yet, who would have thought that under the surface of this affable and pious personality was the weighty cross of a depression borne in silence? He complained about it to no one. But perhaps it was this interior ‘cross,’ this suffering, that was the secret to that strength of spirit which made the man what he was.

I suppose that Johnny Williams himself would be the one most surprised that any notice was being paid to himself. He was that ‘Everyman kind of Catholic man’ who lived his faith ardently but quietly. He’s the type of layman that the Church once had in abundance but now in scarcity. It was good to be reminded in him of how things once were so commonly and how they yet ought to be.

But there is one thing puzzling about his life’s story that gives us pause. It’s the sad ending to what was in so many ways a good life. Naturally one questions, at least to himself, how this man could come to such an end of his life.

There is ample indication that Johnny’s faith and devotion remained steadfast right until his last moments. The morning of his disappearance was marked by his usual bible reading and prayer, even though he was ill at ease. It would be contrary to Christian hope to think that his typically persistent invocation to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the patrons of a happy death, was ignored in heaven. But what to eyes of men is a good life’s end may not be at all so in the eyes of God. The violent death of many holy martyrs of the Church bears witness to this as does the apparent prosperity in which some of the ungodly meet their final days. Not as man sees does God see. But if Johnny persevered in grace and in faith, his death was indeed a happy one, in communion with God, no matter how unfortunate the incidentals of his death.

There is then both something ordinary and extraordinary here for us to ponder. The ordinary way of being a good Christian is through fidelity to one’s calling in life and through fidelity to the Catholic faith. What is extraordinary is that the witness to this ordinary way of sanctity has become a rarity in the wayward and much confused times in which we live.

In a funeral Mass of the Catholic Church, we reflect not only on the meaning of living daily in union with Christ and in dying well in His grace, but we also pray for the soul of the departed. All have sins that must be atoned for. The communal aspect of the Catholic Church (what we call the mystical body of Christ) affords us the ability to assist one another to attain unto the eternal possession of God. The offering of the sacrifice of the Mass, this mystical renewal of the offering once made by Jesus on the cross, now renewed on the altar under the appearances of bread and wine, is a real and powerful source of help and comfort to the faithful departed.

May the blood of our Redeemer offered here become a cleansing agent for the soul of our brother Johnny and assist him achieve the possession of God in the blessed company of his choice and beloved friends, Mary and Joseph, Therese and all the angels and saints.

May these thoughts and hopes give comfort to Therese and her family and to all who have come to pray for the eternal good of Johnny Williams. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.