Just a little reminder to please keep the Barretts in your prayers today especially as they bury their beloved son, and pray for all of their local family and friends attending the funeral as well. Their community has come together in such a loving and supportive way to sustain them through these difficult days, but the final closure of a funeral can be the hardest. So many young people are mourning the loss of a friend as well, many of them facing the death of a child for the first time. Most of you have already read Mary Ellen's beautiful and gracious words and know of her compassion even in this time of excruciating pain. Please let's keep them lifted up and bathed in prayer throughout this day, and as they begin to live the rest of their earthly lives without their dear boy.
Also, don't miss this beautiful story of the bishop at his wake, and information about where to send donations is here. (How can you not love supporting a group called the 'Friar Suppliers'?) You can also read some of Mary Ellen's previous writings about Ryan here and here.
from the Collect of Mass on the Day of Burial:
O God, whose property is ever to have mercy and to spare, we humbly entreat Thee on behalf of the soul of Thy servant Ryan, whom Thou hast bidden this day to pass out of this world: that Thou wouldst not deliver him into the hands of the enemy nor forget him for ever, but command him to be taken up by the holy Angels, and to be borne to our home in paradise, that as he had put his faith and hope in Thee he may not undergo the pains of hell but may possess everlasting joys. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost God, world without end. Amen.
from the Epistle:
Brethern: We will not have you ignorant concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope; for as we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them who have slept. For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven, with commandment, and with the voice of an Archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so shall we be always with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.