PODCAST - Press sideways triangle below to listen
Funeral Mass for Bernard McGibbon
St. Joseph Church, Texas
April 25, 2018
Yoked with the Lord
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Condolences
To Mary, Bernard’s dear wife and best friend,
To Tracey & Jack, Claire & Brian, Fiona & Larkin, Allison and Brian,
To Dawn & Walid, and Kim & Jimmy,
To his 14 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren,
And to his brother Terry who is not able to be with us,
We gather as friends, family, and associates of Bernard to stand with you in this time of loss and to join in honoring a truly great family man, friend, surgeon and artist.
Good Yokes
Jesus had a way of taking the ordinary things in the lives of the people of his day and drawing from them lessons for living more caring, loving lives.
Ordinary things in peoples’ experience became the connectors for getting through tough times to living a new quality of life.
Take for example the double yoke mentioned in today’s Gospel. The yoke held two oxen side-by-side and connected them to the plough or cart they were pulling.
In Jesus’ day, carpenters were judged by the quality of the yokes they made for oxen.
The fit of the yoke to the oxen had to be perfect or it could goad or irritate the animal and thus lessen their ability to carry the load.
This “good fit” is part of Jesus’ being able to say, that, “My yoke is easy, my burden light…”The other part of his being able to say that, is with a double yoke, no ox ploughed alone. And not only did he not plough alone, but the one ox was always paired with an older more experienced ox.
So in short, the lesson they learned from Jesus’ down-to-earth example was:
(1) What connected you to your task in life was a good fit for you,
(2) You had an experienced side-kick along with you who had been through it all, and
(3) There was someone right by your side to help you carry your load.
Quite a lesson for deepening your own spiritual life, I’d say.
Bernard in the Yoke with Us
Bernard met the challenges of laboring to be the best husband, father, and friend, being the best surgeon, being the best artist he was capable of being.
He was a wonderful husband. Mary boasts that there was no one else in the world like him. He was a tangible and powerful presence 24 hours a day for their 37 years of marriage.
He was respected, loved, and adored by his children as Tracey has testified on their behalf.
We who claim him as a friend know firsthand his warm hospitality, joyful presence, and energetic engagement. I loved getting together with him and his dear friend Frank, when Frank flew in from California visiting. There was nothing Bernard wouldn’t do for you.
If you were a patient of his, you no doubt experienced his warm and compassionate bedside manner, the extraordinary consultations that put fears and worries to rest, or the quote, “special rates” he so generously offered.
Paul Manson, the head of Johns Hopkins Hospital, says Bernard was a gifted plastic surgeon and known nationally and internationally as a teacher and pioneer in the artistry of plastic surgery.
And being the best didn’t end there. Even as an artist of some note, he gave freely in the sale of his art to the folks attending exhibitions and so many of his works today hang in homes in Maryland.
In all facets of his life with others, he eased burdens, added joy, and made a difference. What a blessing it was to be yoked with such an extraordinary person.
Jesus in the Yoke with Bernard
But in these later years Bernard was to learn that, as he had been at our side supporting and laboring with us, Jesus was yoked to him in his declining health, in his pain and suffering.
I had the pleasure of seeing how Myesha, Janice, and Karen from The We Care Agency ministered so beautifully to him and I learned that through the night similar care was afforded him by Simeon, Adriana, and Tony from Ávila Home Care.
They were loving, affectionate, and topnotch caregivers and were even gifted at entertaining him.
In the times I visited it was always a faith based visit, in that we shared prayer, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Eucharist, and talk of passing to the other side of life. And he’d end with the soft utterance, “I’m not ready yet.”
In his final days spent yoked closely to his Lord, he showed no fear or anxiety and would assure us, saying he was, “fine, fine, fine.”
Conclusion
When I last visited Bernard, the girls were dismantling what had been his art studio. As I left I thought to myself, “Just as the art remains, so do our relationships and the joy of being yoked with him in our lives.
What we celebrate today is that the Lord, who was at his side all the way, has now received him in heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment