Sixteen
JUST AS I HAD HOPED, there is no one present at Leslie’s funeral other than Helen, Anna, and two people from the American Catholic Today. The liturgy is the same for every Funeral Mass, and I chose the readings with special care. It’s not the first funeral I’ve done in Saint Clare’s, so I go through the first part of the Mass with no problems.
It is only when I rise to give my brief homily that I am nervous. “In the passage I just read,” I begin, “the author calls God Abba, Father. We find this very comforting in our lives, the idea of God as Daddy. And we tell our children to obey their fathers, to follow their lead and generally this is a good thing. But we must also remember that it is important for those of us called Father, whether we have biological children or not, to stri
