Eulogy

This is the eulogy I gave for Katie on Monday night at the vigil service.  I'm posting it here after a number of requests to do so.  Also, I would be remiss not to mention how incredible you all are for showing up for Katie's vigil and funeral mass.  I was floored.  Thank you once again for your prayers and support.

If you follow the intersection of politics and the Catholic Church (because really, who doesn't?), you may recognize an homage to the eulogy given for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by his son, Fr. Paul Scalia.  I tried to find a way to credit him in the eulogy itself, but everything I tried just broke up the flow.  This seems a more appropriate place to do so.  

Eulogy for Katherine Lorine Garcia April 10, 2017

Good evening.  

I must begin by thanking each of you for the truly overwhelming, incomprehensible support you have shown to me and our family.  Time, talent, treasure, and prayers, and more of each than anyone could ever imagine.  Thank you.  

We’re here tonight because of someone who is loved by many,

someone whose words touched countless people,

whose presence brought joy and peace,

someone who spoke the truth without shame no matter who was present, 

even if it ruffled some feathers,

especially if it ruffled some feathers.

We’re here to celebrate the person who was the center of our family’s faith life,

who nourished us at table, quenched our thirst, dried our tears, 

and gave us strength to make it through the hardest days,

Someone who pointed to God every day, whether it was popular or not,

someone who suffered greatly, and who consciously chose to use that suffering for the sake of others.  

That person, of course, is Jesus Christ.  

You may have thought that I was talking about my sweet Kate.  That’s because Katie lived her life pointing to Jesus, and she would want me to spend this time focused on Him.  

All of us here tonight, as well as thousands more around the world prayed for Kate’s healing from this disease.  By the way, I saw the stats on the blog, and thousands is not an exaggeration.  

So what, then, are we to make of her death?  Why didn’t He hear the cry of His people?  

Did God turn a deaf ear?  

Did Jesus abandon Katie?  

Did we choose the wrong saint to ask for a miracle?  

Perhaps He would have healed her if we had just… 

No.  That’s not how God works.  

Our God is a God of love and compassion, healing and redemption.  God is not a magic spell, or a recipe that we have to follow to the letter or else.  Jesus is a person, and Katie was deeply, madly in love with Him.  

I think it’s fitting that she passed when she did - on the cusp of Holy Week, when we remember Jesus’ passion and death, that death which was the only acceptable payment for our sins.  It’s almost as if Kate wanted us to connect her death with His, and so draw us deeper into the mysteries we celebrate this week.  

And then after our mourning, joy of joys, we get to celebrate Christ’s rising to new life, opening the door for Katie and all of us to join Him in unutterable ecstasy.  And on Sunday, I encourage each of you (and I’ll be doing my best to follow my own advice) to celebrate Easter.  Celebrate Kate’s rising to new life.  Celebrate the friend, sister, daughter, mother, wife that she was to each of us.  

I’ve been reading through her journal these last few days, and it’s clear that in the deepest parts of her soul, Kate gave her fiat, her yes, to our Lord each and every day.  She struggled, as we all do, to understand why He would ask certain things of her.  Why He would ask her to die.  

I don’t know the whole truth of it, and I probably won’t until I meet her again in paradise, but I know this:

Katie’s deepest desire was for God to use her to call others closer to Him.  Thank you for answering that call.