More Than A Grain Of Wheat

Marybeth, Jeff, Luke, Scott and Nora;
Carrie’s grandparents- Byron and Barbara Shepard--; Carrie’s aunts and uncles; Kevin and Sharon, Kathleen and Don , Patty and Brian, Michael & Mary Kate, Joe, Neil, Peter & Rachel, Louisa & Gabe, Mark & Julie Cousins too numerous to name; Young friends of Carrie from New Horizons Youth Group, Regina, ETHS, King Lab, One Step at a time Camp, Caregivers from Children’s Memorial, especially, Dr Morgan, Jean Schwab and Jaquie Toia, neighbors, parishioners and friends of every age:

We at St. Nicholas still reeling from the loss of a parish son, must gather again to bury a parish daughter. Jeff and Marybeth, I can’t conceive of anything more painful for you; as a pastor there is nothing more anguishing than losing a child of the parish. Relationships may differ but we all share your pain, Marybeth and Jeff, Luke, Scott and Nora. Like Jacob in biblical times, we wrestle with God and God seems to be battering us. The feelings and emotions are so many: sadness, emptiness, bewilderment, wonder…anger at a life interrupted, but there’s also gratitude for a life shared even for only 18 years. In Jim Croegaert’s words that we sang last night, “We come, we cry, we watch, we wait, we look, we long, for you.”

In our tears, in our looking and longing for comfort, and understanding, courage and peace, we lean on one another, and together we lean on our faith in God even as we get red hot angry with God. We people of the Book, open that Book that accompanied Carrie and accompanies us in our watching and waiting and longing and looking from birth to death.

And this is what we read: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Unless grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jesus summons us into mystery, the mystery of death and life, the paradoxical mystery of renewal—that process of seeming death that ends with abundant life and vibrant harvest. We experience that mystery all around us as winter’s death gives way to spring’s new life that explodes into summer’s bounty.

Jesus himself is speaking first of himself as the grain of wheat. His hour has come, the hour for which he had come among us—the return to his Father through his passion, death, resurrection and ascension which would free all peoples from oppression, injustice, fear and hatred, sin and death. He is troubled in spirit but nevertheless resolute in his desire to do the will of his Father. For the writer of the Gospel of John, this is his Gethsemane: the suffering, the anguished appeal to the Father, the willing acceptance of the ordeal and the consoling affirmation from above. (“I come, I cry, I watch, I wait, I look, I long, for you.”)

“Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground, it remains only a grain of wheat.” Each of us too is that grain of wheat. If we would follow Jesus, we must lose our lives in self-giving if we would preserve them for eternal life. As disciples of the Lord, we must be ready to participate personally and really in Jesus’ death—to die as the grain of wheat dies, so to produce life and fruit.

Jesus didn’t want to die but he knew he must. Carrie didn’t want to die anymore than Jesus wanted to die. Like Jesus she had her Gethsemane—Chemo! Like Jesus she appealed.. With Jesus she accepted.

She never asked: “why me?” She chose healing over blaming, knowing that cancer didn’t discriminate. Was she frightened, did she fear? At times she felt like her body had become a hollow shell, that her insides retreated into a tiny ball, she felt unprotected…she sobbed in her pillow..and then suddenly she would be overcome with an incredible relaxing calm.” In her own words, “I now see death as the ultimate gift. It’s everything in life that can be lost. Death is the only complete freedom…the moment in which I feel God very intensely.” She would never admit to it but Carrie was a theologian! She echoed the words of Karl Rahner, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century who suggested “that the moment of death is the moment when we exercise our transcendental freedom. The moment of death becomes the time of gathering a lifetime, affirming it and freely surrendering it into the Father’s hands.”

Carrie gathered a lifetime, affirmed it and freely surrendered it. Her lifetime of 18 years was richer than many four times that number. She valued time--a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” She valued the time with her siblings, all her family and her friends. Just consider her schedule last week: Friday-Skybox at Cubs/Sox game, Saturday: A sleepover with a crowd of Regina friends; Sunday: a gathering with ETHS friends; Monday: softball with the youth group; Tuesday, Nickel City with her siblings; Wednesday: dinner at Dave and Busters and lunch somewhere else; Thursday: shopping with Kieran and Molly and who knows what else?; Friday: 4th of July Parade, Dinner and the Fireworks.

She always wanted to be ordinary and she was—in an extraordinary way. She had the struggles teens experience but she outdistanced her years. Though she at times felt like she wasn’t doing anything, she was. She was building relationships as she trusted people around her to take care of her. As you said, Marybeth, she had a natural insight into people from the when you all lived at Misericordia and she learned to sign as she learned to talk, to her mentoring of Scott and Nora, her mischievous middle of the night antics with big brother Luke, and her absolute delight being with teens in the youth group at school, and so specially with you her dear friends at One Step at a Time Camp. It was there that she found God, in you, in all who were part of her life….and in herself..

“Finding God is different for everyone, she wrote. Each person’s experience has a different flavor. I have found God in myself.

Since my diagnosis of leukemia, I’ve seen God in countless numbers of people: my mom, my nurses, my family and friends, my teachers and some patients I’ve met who’ve passed away. I saw God when my brother Scott got up in the middle of the night to make me a bag of popcorn, because I was hungry from the steroids and my legs were too weak to climb out of bed. I see God in my realtionship with my brother Luke. I still see God in my sister everyday. I love so much that she could be there for me in a time when I didn’t have the strength to love myself.”

In so many ways she has been the grain of wheat losing her life in giving to others. You at Regina—Reginites—have said she was your spiritual heart. She was behind so much service which distinguished her class, like outreach to the family of the New York firefighter who died in 911. She cared for her family, her siblings and her friends.

The grain of wheat. All of us are called to live this paradox, we must die so that we can live, patterning our life after Jesus. We who feel so bad, who hurt so deeply, who wrestle with God for understanding are challenged today to imitate this extraordinarily ordinary person named Carolyn Ella Shepard—to gather our lifetime, as she did hers, to affirm it and freely surrender it into God’s hands.

We do not do this alone. Jesus stands with us. Holds us. Shelters us. Jeff and Marybeth and all the family, we stand with you. We want to hold you, to walk with you as you held Carrie and so lovingly cared for her through the days and through the nights and down the arches of her years. We want to share your burden of loss. We also want to share our gratitude for Carrie. We want to share our faith that this beautiful grain of wheat that has gone into the ground will produce an incredibly wonderful harvest. She already has.

To the young people from Childrens, from our youth group, from Carrie’s schools, and all young people battered but not broken, look to Carrie and to all those whose lifetimes were so brief, who passed through our lives like shooting stars. Remember what St. John Crysostom once said: “Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were. Now they are where we are!”

Carrie is “where we are”. Her spirit lives on.

Listen to her echo the words of St Paul: “ And now, my family, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent and admirable—fill all your thoughts with these things.

The lessons I taught you, the traditions I passed on, all that you heard me say or saw me do, put into practice; and the God of love be with you.”