Hello, and Farewell Kenneth DiPalma

I think I have noticed when moments of Grace have come my way. Sometimes. But not always.

I have begun to think, particularly in these last 18 months since I was thrown on my metaphorical keister job wise that not only was that "meant" to be, but that I have been pointed toward a very different life in whatever time I have left, short or long.  I am still working out what that all is and I am trying to listen to the Direction being given. But one thing I think that I need to pay more attention to-- those moments of Grace that come my way. I think they are part of the Direction, the Guidance, as it were of my God.

I wasn't really in the mood to serve Mass today, but we are short again of servers, the most regular one of whom was a fragile man, a recovering alcoholic, who was ill treated, however much without intention, by another parishioner, and has left, at least for now. So, I went just early enough to be sure the candles were lit and things were set for the daily service.

When I came in, one of the men who helps keep the Church facility clean and stocked told me to tell the priest that although there was an urn present with the cremains of a man, it wasn't exactly a funeral Mass that was to proceed. I didn't quite comprehend. With the remains there, what would it otherwise be but a funeral Mass?  In my context-less rule bound days, I might have worried about the propriety of a Mass that wasn't orchestrated as a properly prepared funeral one. Or how can you have a Mass with an urn there and have it not be an offical funeral service?  My job? To serve.  To do whatever the priest presiding asked of me for the benefit of the soul, who turned out to be in a small box (rather than an urn of urn shape) on a little table just inisde the sanctuary by the altar rail.

It was Fr. Lopez, a gentlemanly older priest who is also easy going by nature, who arrived. He had been intercepted and given the news of this deceased person, whose ashes had been brought to our parish by three individuals I had never seen before. They did not exactly look like they were related, different not only in their sizes and ages but in ethnic background. Yet, everyone was calling them, "family". There was no one else accompanying them as there would be at a traditional funeral, or at least ones I have attended.

Fr. asked me if I knew when the man, by now I knew his name, Kenneth DiPalma, had died. I knew nothing other than he was there, and that the three people in the front row had brought him.

Fr. said, "We'll go witih the flow."  He asked to look at a booklet for priests for the Funeral Rite. I found one in the antique kneeler in the sacristy. He would do a version of it, a quieter version. He told me that as we went out to bow at the Lord in the Tabernacle, he would turn and go to talk quickly to the "family", greeting them. 

And so he did. We began. He told the gathered, perhaps a bit more than 20, the average of a Daily Mass, that we were memorializing this man, Kenneth DiPalma. When it came to the readings, Fr. motioned me. I quietly crossed to his side of the sanctuary from mine and he instructed me to read those passages in the booklet that more accorded with the occasion of a soul being handed off to God than the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas which it was today. I found myself wanting to read well for this man I never met, about life, death and Resurrection, and about the Walk in the Valley of Death that leads to Eternal Life. "The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. . ." 

Although Fr. did not know Kenneth the words he spoke, I wish I could now remember them, managed to be intensely personal as if he had. General, but personal; how did he manage that? I felt more from his words than I ever had from those of the priest who said my own mother's funeral mass, that poor priest I have never let off the hook for his staccato prayer and sermon, so many years ago.

Communion. The three members of the family couldn't  decide whether to receive or not. And then two did.

As Father purified the vessels after Communion, he asked me if there was any holy water. I knew he was thinking of a prayer and blessing over the wooden box containing Kenneth. I ran into the sacristy and found the aspergillum, the instrument used to sprinkle the water, which seemed empty. I ran to the small font, which was close to empty itself, and tried to dunk the aspergillum, but it was too large. I then poured a bit from the bowl next to it into the instrument, and ran out. Whether it sprinkled or not the process, the blessing, would still be meaningful, that with this water there was the reminder of baptism, of salvation and of new life.

And so there we stood, the priest and me, the server, as he prayed for this man we did not know but who is part with us in the communion of saints. "Eternal rest grant unto Kenneth, O Lord. and may Eternal Light shine upon him." 

What little I could find out later is that Kenneth lived in Palm Springs and was at one time a parishioner of my church. When he died, he had no family, apparently, and these three lovely people, friends, took it upon themselves to acquire his ashes, when finally they were released by the coronor, and seek some service in the place to which they had been directed, here, this 12:10 Mass on January 28, 2013.

Kenneth was blessed by these people who helped to send him on his journey. I was blessed to be there.

Hello, and Farewell, Kenneth DiPalma. I will pray for you henceforward. Pray for me.