Today, you were finally laid to rest, in the company of close family and friends. Your exit was as quiet as your entry into this world. I hope you find company with the other angels you are joining up in Heaven.

I’ll leave here a transcript of what your grandpa said about you today…

We all know why we’re here: to commend to Almighty God, our dear Lucas, who as we see on the front cover… “born silent, perfect and beautiful, forever leaving footprints in our hearts.”

I don’t want this occasion to go by without trying to make sense of what happened. In times like these, we turn to Him, who knows all things, and who seeks to bring knowledge to bear on our hearts and lives. In the the second reading for today, Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the very core of the message of Jesus. His entire life was about coming to establish God’s Kingdom; to establish God’s reign on earth. One of the great theologians of the Church, William Barkley, describes the Kingdom of God as that reality which is created when human beings do the Will of God as perfectly as it is done in Heaven. In the Lord’s Prayer, our Savior taught us to pray, “Your Kingdom come, on earth, as it is in Heaven.” However, we know the problem: we are imperfect people. How can we do the Will of God perfectly? How can perfection be achieved by imperfect people? But we also remember that the Savior said that the Kingdom of God has come and is in our midst (and He is referring to Himself). He, the perfect one, came into our imperfect world, and invites us to bring about God’s Kingdom. As much as people try to achieve this in their corner of the world, then that reality is evident. Whatever we call reality today is a direct reflection of whether God’s Will is being done. We must keep trying for that perfection that is found in Christ. Our Saviour challenges us to “Be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

As we come into the presence of our dear Lucas, who came into the world silently, he came into our reality, born with all the potential of what his life might have held, and was not touched by imperfection. We know that Lucas would have grown up in a family that really loved him and given him the best opportunity of growing up, as evidenced in the life of his parents, close family and loved ones. But that was not meant to be. What has happened here is that God’s perfection, as possessed by Lucas, returns to God. “Unless you become like a child, you shall never enter…” Sometimes we say that a child has to mature into something else. That’s why we work so hard to make sure our children are well-educated, but Jesus has turned that around, not in material possessions or academic achievements. He wants us to go back to the honesty, humility and pureness of heart of a child. We will never be able to do God’s Will, as God intended it, unless we return to that state. Lucas did not have to go back there; he was there, he was perfection. He goes back to God. The challenge is for us to somehow take on his humility, sinlessness, and pureness of heart, that we may one day go where he is.

In the first reading, from the book of Revelation, the evangelist John speaks about a great multitude in Heaven. From verse 11, “All the angels stood around the throne and elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne worshipping God saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen!’.” That’s the song of the Angels, a song of the pure-in-heart and the perfect. When we normally read this lesson at funerals, it is for an adult who we hope will one day join in this cloud of witnesses. What we don’t think about are the angels who are there leading the worship of God. I wish to submit that, among the angels singing God’s praises in Heaven, there will be numbered one more today: Lucas James. Hopefully, we will be in the great cloud of witnesses one day, but Lucas is in the company of the angels, who was not touched by sin or imperfection.

We cannot change what has happened. It is the truth. Lucas died before he came into the world. But Lucas is now in the presence of God. He is one of God’s angels. Right now, it’s difficult to say that we celebrate Lucas’ going, but one day we will be able to say that we celebrate Lucas’ presence among the angels of God.

Today, we let him go. Remember the promise made by Jesus: “I am with you always”. There is nothing that we cannot do without Christ. The presence of Christ will not erase Lucas’ memory but make it easier for us to go on. As much as we would love him to be with us, Lucas is in the Hands of God, and those are good hands to be in.

Rest eternal grant onto him. And may light perpetual shine upon him.

+Grandpa