By Rev. John Tiernan, MSFS
elcome home! It's so good to see you. I've missed you so much"
Cathy said these words to me last November, the day that some of her friends decided to surprise her for her birthday in Atlanta. I hadn't seen her for almost 18 months, but with just a smile and a few heartfelt words, it was like we had never been separated.
���But we are separated now. All of us are physically separated from that quick smile, that sunny disposition, that charming Louisiana personality and that heart that just pumped love out to everyone she met.
���And Cathy's love had its roots in Christ. The love she had for Tom was sacramental. She and Tom and God set up house together. Where God is found love is found, for love is His name.
���The love she had for Haley and for Theo and for Spencer and for baby Coleman, was also sacramental. Like God, who longs to gather us under His wings like a mother hen, Cathy gathered in her loving embrace her children, teaching them what is important in life and how to judge what is good and not so good for them. Love is not only a gift, it is also a discipline, and Cathy did what a mother must do to make her children disciples of love.
���Cathy's love for each and every one was also a gift to God and a gift from God. To friends and relatives, she was a caring and faithful person, always ready to give some of herself to those who might need it. And to her Church, she gave of the treasures she had received: her heart and her time. Minister of the Eucharist, lector, Baptism preparer, Women's Guild member, preschool teacher, Pastoral Council president; without a doubt I've forgotten something that she has done in her life that touched and affected so many people.
���Perhaps the Gospel reading might seem strange to some of us today. The words of the two convicted felons and the words of Christ do not seem to echo the life of Cathy. Yet, as our own sister, she had the same choice to make as they: to either bully and intimidate God into proving that He is the Messiah and can save anyone, even the most ornery of persons, or to place complete confidence in God and in His love and mercy, knowing that without Him we are completely lost. Cathy echoed so many times, by her words and actions, the good thief's prayer. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. For Christ is not like you or like me, who can forget someone's face or someone's name. The memory of God is an eternal one, and as long as God is and God exists, so will our presence be in His memory. No greater sadness can exist than for the people who have no one to remember them, or pray for them, or long for them. The prayer of the good thief, the prayer to be remembered if only for a second, is a prayer to be eternally present with God and in God.
���Such was Cathy's wish, and such was Cathy's prayer, for it was the natural result of the faith in God that she had, in her God-given vocation of wife, mother and friend. That faith is the faith in the Good News as Saint Paul told the Thessalonians. Since Christ has died and has come back to life, those of us who fall asleep in Christ will also be resurrected to a new life with Him. We may not know God's day or God's time, but we know that with a word of command, with the mighty blast of the trumpet, with the cries of the angels, Christ will come and raise the dead. He will lift them up, and he will call them to his eternal home.
���Once there, we will never be separated from the love of Christ, so we know in confidence that our sister in faith, Cathy, is not separated from the Savior who loved her so much. Saint Paul tells us the nothing will ever be able to separate Cathy from that love of Christ. Christ is for her... so no one can be against... and no thing can ever end that loving relationship. Not anguish, not distress, not persecution, not famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor the sword. Not life, not death, nor anything under the sun from the beginning of creation to its end, is powerful enough to wrestle us out of God's loving embrace.
���Yes, Cathy is no longer physically present and alive for us, yet, she will be present and alive each time we remember and we cherish the souvenirs and momentos of life that she gave us daily.
���Now she is with God-the God who created and upheld her-the God who loved her from the beginning of time and who will love her until he comes again in glory to call the rest of his children home.
���Last Saturday, as the sad new arrived in Norcorss, Georgia, a thunder and lightening storm broke out. My guess is that one of Cathy's friend up in heaven, Father Ken, spared no heavenly expense in getting God to give Cathy a thunderous reception.
���My guess is that we can also imagine the meeting of Cathy and her loving and caring God. God probably echoed the words from His heart that Cathy had said to me... "Welcome home, Cathy! It's so good to see you. I've missed you so much,"
���This day, you are with me in paradise.
Amen.
July 27, 1999
���She is survived by her husband Thomas Coleman of Thibodaux, one daughter, Haley,19, and three sons, Theo,13, Spencer,7, and a newborn, Graham; her mother, Amy Soileau Veillon and stepfather, Clifton Veillon, Sr. of Opelousas; three sisters, Rita Dupre-Pate of Milton, Fla., Marilyn Zerangue of Lafayette, La. and Donna Phillips of Moore, Okla.; four brothers, L.T. "Butch" Dupre, Jr. of Lafayette, La., Eugene Dupre of Lafayette, La., Karl Dupre of Nashville, Tenn., and Philip Dupre of Grand Coteau, La.