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“I will see you again, and you will rejoice” (John 16:22)  

On Monday, October 1 at 1:00 pm we will gather at Prince of Faith to say farewell to our beloved sister in Christ, Rosemary Puhan.  All are welcome to attend.  

Perhaps I should say instead that we gather to say, “until we meet again”.  For that is the promise Christ offers to us: that through the mercy and grace of God, we will indeed meet again.  It is our ultimate proclamation that God’s love does win.   

In the midst of the struggles and challenges of this life, it is not always easy (or even possible) to believe that God’s love will win in the end.  We look at the suffering and pain of the world, of our loved ones, of our own journeys, and it seems almost a fantasy that God’s love triumphs over all this.   

And then we see the witness of people like Rosemary.  Rosemary was no stranger to struggle and pain.  And yet, until the moment of her death, she was sustained, held up by her faith in God; her faith in God’s sustaining presence in her life, and her faith that God’s love does indeed triumph.  27 years after she lost her beloved husband Karyl, she remained utterly convinced that through the great grace and mercy of God, death would reunite them, just as it had once divided them.  And so Rosemary was unafraid of death.  She went, at last, willingly into death’s embrace.  

Rosemary’s life and death stands as a witness to the power of faith in God: to the power of resilience in the face of struggles, and resolve in the face of death that faith in God can bring into our lives.  But Rosemary reminds us also: it is love which wins in the end.  

Rosemary has run her race well, and entered into the glory of God’s love.  Rest eternal grant unto her, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon her.  May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, by the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.