When I was in the States many years ago, one of the phrases I couldn't figure out was 'private funeral' written in obituaries. I was asking myself if that meant that a person needed to receive an invitation to pay respect to the dead. It didn't then occur to me to Google what it meant. I found out much later that a private funeral was a declaration that the family wanted to mourn privately. Only family members and those expressly invited could attend.
I can understand the concept. But my experience of going to wakes, celebrating funeral Masses, asking family members to say their final goodbyes, and then signaling the mortuary crew that they can now inter the body says that grieving is profoundly personal yet communal.
My experience is that people will not attend family reunions but will go to a wake, a funeral Mass, or a burial. I think I can speak for many of us when I say that I meet many I have not seen in years at wakes, funerals, and burials.
It seems that those who have departed from our midst can gather us better than the living can. So far, this is the biggest gathering of PCS '71 that I have been able to attend. I'm seeing classmates and batchmates whom I last saw fifty-four years ago. Fifty-four years because I left Paco Catholic School with our batchmates Armando Apuya, Mariano Magno, Rodolfo Menguita, and Emmanuel Sarmiento for Our Lady of Guadalupe Minor Seminary. Some of us did something similar. But we call ourselves inclusively Batch 1971.
I'm sure our batchmates who have gone ahead approve.
We are here to celebrate their lives. The organizing group told me that the earliest one to leave us passed on in 1973, two years after high school graduation, killed in a motorcycle accident. Our most recent one, I heard, was Rico San Agustin; he died last April 12. My contact with him was through Facebook. My last recollection was pictures of him in a triathlon. Last night, I found out that he had been sick during the previous months of 2020.
The just man though, he die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years.
Wisdom 4, 7 – 8
I'm sure that what I feel – a sense of loss – is something we all share, each in our unique way, but significantly heightened during this pandemic. We are reminded of our mortality and fragility because those who have become closer to us through the years, have gone ahead.
I think that I can speak for many of us when I say that I feel closer now to my batchmates now that we're all older, grizzled veterans, battle-scarred, but still smiling. God in his infinite mercy has chosen us to remain even as he has called our batchmates to Himself earlier, at their own appointed time.
No, in all these things, we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8, 37-39
The bond that we have formed with our batchmates remains in our memories and our PCS 1971 community. Death only changed how they interact with us. Our Lord did not leave us when he resurrected and ascended into heaven. In the same way, our batchmates have never left us. Their passing on means that they now see God face to face. They continue to assist us from the next life. That whisper of encouragement that buzzed our ears when we felt down, that extra nudge we sensed when we were trying to do better, the little things they did, who is to say that they are not from them? They now know the way God knows, what assists us. Isn't this what our Lord promised to His disciples?
I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
Matthew 11, 25
PCS '71 batchmates and teachers, pray for us.
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