Mairead Brigid Corrigan
Born March 9, 1995
Died January 16, 2014
Read Father Ryan's
Homily
Read Siobhan's Eulogy
Photo album
Mairead serving at Great Music, 2010
Father Ryan's
Homily for Mairead Brigid Corrigan
January 23, 2014
There are
things in life that, by any human reckoning, should simply never happen, and
moments in life that, if we could, we would escape at any price.
This is one such thing and one such moment, and we are powerless to escape or to
change it. But no matter how devastated we are or how dark this moment,
there is a ray of light. The light is our faith –- Mairead’s faith and
ours -- our faith in God and in Jesus Christ who triumphed over death and
promised that we would, too. The light is also the wonderful Corrigan
family -- Maggie, Barrett, Siobhan, Clare, Nora -- who, in their heartbreaking
loss, are wonderfully there for each other and for us with love and care and
support and, at times, even a few laughs amid all the grief and tears.
Thank God for that. And thank Mairead for that, because that’s what she
would want. And thank God, too, for the Irish who know how to grieve and
how to celebrate!
Like all
of you, I am at a loss for words, and am keenly aware that there is really
nothing I can say tonight that will take away your pain or make sense of what
happened to Mairead a week ago. I doubt Mairead could have explained it,
either, and that’s part of what makes all this so agonizingly difficult, so
unspeakably sad. And although any attempt to explain is going to fall short, I
have come to believe that there is a kind of pain that cannot find words, a
heartache so deep that it defies healing, a choice so clouded by mental anguish
that it is really no choice at all.
For
reasons we can only guess at, Mairead came to a point where the road ahead
seemed too long, the well too deep (her expression), the horizon too distant,
the journey too dark. No one who hasn’t personally known this hopeless
void should try to describe or explain it, and that includes me. But I
will say that when it comes to a beautiful young person like Mairead -- a young
person just can’t be expected to have the same perspective on life that we who
have lived longer are likely to acquire. And I think, too, that, no matter how
mature Mairead was for her age, the depression she struggled with so long
outweighed the hope she fought for and clung to for so long. That
depression must have seemed to her like the only enduring reality.
And so, in
thinking about Mairead, maybe we shouldn’t so much question why she did what she
did as marvel at how she carried on so well for so long. And even though
we will always have more questions than answers, there is one certainty we can
hold onto, a certainty perhaps best expressed by the contemporary spiritual
writer, Fr. Ron Rolheiser, who describes suicide as “a terminal illness no more
willed by its victim than death by cancer, stroke, or heart attack.” To that I
would add one other certainty. It’s this: no one is to blame for Mairead’s
illness or death. No one.
I spoke of
the hope that Mairead held onto for so long. As we deal with her death,
it’s very important for us to remember that when her hope gave out, God’s love,
God’s boundless mercy, took over. It did. I have no doubt of that
--- no doubt whatever that Mairead now rests in the tender, loving embrace of
the God she loved, the God she came to know uncommonly well for a young person
of eighteen. For that reason, my friends, I hope that, through our tears,
we can allow ourselves some peace and quiet joy and, yes, maybe even a smile – a
Mairead Corrigan smile – a smile better than any I ever saw, a smile that
brought joy to everyone who knew her, a smile that lit up our lives and now
lights up the heavens.
That smile
is something that I, along with our servers and sacristans here at St, James got
to experience every Sunday morning in the sacristy before the 10:00 Mass –
Mairead’s Mass. Mairead’s arrival in the sacristy was the sun coming out
on a cloudy Seattle day. She didn’t need to say anything (although she
usually did!) -– she just had to arrive on the scene, and the sun was out.
Which puts me in mind of what Mairead told the interviewer when she was applying
for a job at Starbucks. When asked what she would bring to the job she
simply said, “I make things brighter.” Were truer words ever spoken?!
Would that Mairead could have made things as bright for herself as she did for
all of us!
Mairead
brightened the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people in this Cathedral Sunday
after Sunday when she would lead the procession down the center aisle, swinging
the thurible, enveloping herself and all of us in clouds of incense.
Mairead swung that thurible with style and class, swung it like no one else, and
wherever she went after Mass, the sweet scent of St. James, the fragrance of
holiness went with her! (We don’t usually use incense at a funeral, but
we're doing so tonight in honor of Mairead.)
There were
other times that Mairead brightened the lives of a Cathedral-full of people.
I think, for instance, of the time a little over a year ago when, at five Sunday
Masses, she stood right here in this pulpit and spoke to us about Sacrificial
Giving. We all marveled at how a sixteen-year-old could charm us so
completely. She held us spellbound as she shared with us what this Cathedral and
this community of faith meant to her and had meant to her ever since she was a
child. She got us laughing when she told us how, when she was very young,
her big sisters, Siobhan and Clare, practical jokers both of them, told Nora and
her that -- at the time of the Mass just before Communion when everyone prays,
“Lord I am not worthy to receive you; say but the word and I shall be healed” --
the ‘word’ to be said in order to really be healed was “hippopotamus!”
Where they came up with that, God only knows, but Mairead and Nora fell for it
for some time until they realized that they had been tricked. (Something tells
me there was payback time…!)
In a more
serious vein, Mairead went on to tell us that day (and here I quote), “I wonder
how I was ever able to get from the little girl doodling on the bulletin to
where I am now. My parents and my family have taught me many things, but
teaching me how to practice my faith and love my faith is the most important
lesson. St. James is a unique place…, St. James is family.”
At another
time, Mairead wrote a lovely piece for our parish journal which we call In
Your Midst. She spoke poetically and powerfully of (again, I quote) “the
light that bathes the altar in this place, the light that bathes the hearts of
those in misery, the soft echo of private whispered prayers, as well as the
public declarations of faith.” She spoke, too, of the many people in the parish
who reach out to give a helping hand to those less fortunate and she concluded
her thoughts with these words: “The Holy Spirit is in you, in me, and in this
community.”
Well, she
got that right. And the Holy Spirit is here now, my friends -– gathering
us, comforting us, challenging us. We are hearing the voice of the Spirit
tonight in our prayers spoken and sung, and we heard the Spirit’s voice, too, in
the Scripture readings which were the foundation and the inspiration for
everything I have been saying.
The
reading from Isaiah, spoken long ago to God’s people in exile, far from home,
far from all they held dear, spoke poignantly and tenderly to this moment, too:
“For a
brief moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will take you back.
For a moment I hid my face from you, but with enduring love I take pity on you,
says the Lord, your redeemer…Though the mountains leave their place and the
hills be shaken, my love shall never leave you!”
And Jesus,
in the passage from John’s gospel, reinforced those words by telling us that
“Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who
comes to me, because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the
will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I
should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it up on
the last day…This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and
believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise that one on the last
day.”
Those
words don’t demand much, if any, commentary from me. They are foundational
to our Christian faith; they are what give us confidence in the midst of deep
sadness and mourning; they are our reason for hope, even for joy.
The
reading from the Book of Revelation was really more a painting than a reading, a
beautiful picture painted on the vast canvas of the created universe, a picture
of “new heavens and a new earth, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride on her wedding day.” The city
really defies description, but we know this much: there is no death or mourning
there, no crying out or pain, because God dwells there among his people, God who
wipes away the tears from every eye.
My
friends, we need to keep our eyes fixed on that glorious vision now and in the
days to come. We are all destined to live forever in that new and heavenly
city, destined one day to join all God’s friends, including dear Mairead, in
that glorious new world where pain and heartache are no longer and where God
makes all things new.
Three
years ago, in a lovely poem she wrote for our parish journal, Mairead spoke
movingly and beautifully of that glorious new world. I thought I’d let her
have the last word here by reading her poem for you.
God has painted the world so many colors
The brilliance of the golden sun
The silver clouds,
When God truly comes the color will be indescribable
A color that will bring all colors together
There will be no color left out
And anyone who may have doubted will know God is here
The happiness and joy spread by this color will be infectious,
The doors of opportunity will open,
And our meaning of life will become clear.
People will understand the unity of humanity,
And how we all deserve equality.
Hatred and sadness will be swept away
Forgiveness will overcome those in need.
Then God will have come again,
And God will have shown us his full power.
His full love for us,
And we will have nothing to say
But God will know our thanks.
Dear
Mairead, from your place with God, you now know all those colors you painted so
beautifully in that poem, and you also know the unity and equality and
forgiveness you envisioned for us all. And you know so much more. You
know God’s “full love for us,” as you put it, and God knows your thanks and your
overflowing joy which we can only dimly imagine at this point but will one day
share with you and all the saints when a loving, compassionate God gathers us
all together for joys that will never end.
Until
then, Mairead, be with God, and never stop being there for us.
Father Michael G. Ryan
