My dear friends, I thank you for coming here today to show your respect and affection for Fr. Joel. In our prayers today we place into God’s safe and gentle hands our brother in faith and our brother in Christ’s priesthood. We do this in sorrow over the loss of a gentle and dedicated pastor and friend.  And we do so also in faith. For we know that what has united all of us with Fr. Joel is our faith in Jesus the Christ, the saviour who delivers us from death and gives us the fullness of life forever.

My dear friends, I thank you for coming here today to show your respect and affection for Fr. Joel. In our prayers today we place into God’s safe and gentle hands our brother in faith and our brother in Christ’s priesthood. We do this in sorrow over the loss of a gentle and dedicated pastor and friend.  And we do so also in faith. For we know that what has united all of us with Fr. Joel is our faith in Jesus the Christ, the saviour who delivers us from death and gives us the fullness of life forever. And as is the ancient practice of the Church, we offer to God our Father the Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus, our Saviour, so that our brother Joel may be purified to enter the eternal home that our Lord Jesus Christ has prepared for him. 

I extend my deepest sympathies to the people of St. John the Baptist parish and the parishes of St. Monica in Bienfait and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Macoun who have lost a kind and dedicated pastor. And also to the communities of Lampman, Benson, Forget and Maryland who received the care of sacramental ministry from Fr. Joel. As an ordained priest, Fr Joel acted in the person of Christ, the Head of the Church. But he also made present in his ministry the person of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He faithfully fed his flock with the bread of Jesus teachings and like the shepherd of Isaiah: he gathered the lambs in his arms, and carried them in his bosom, gently leading them.

I also extend my sympathies to the priests of our Archdiocese who have lost a brother and in a special way to our brother priests from the Philippines who feel the pain of this loss in a particular way.

And above all, I extend my heartfelt sympathies to Fr. Joel’s mother, Emerlina Sabeniano Rama; his sister Gina Pantino and brother-in- law Juan Pantino, Jr. with their children Junna Pantino and John Joseph Pantino; his brother Jose Rama, Jr. Who is with us here today and his wife Mayra Rama with their children Joline Rama and Jhyra Rama. It is particularly distressing for a mother to lose her son, particularly a son who is a priest and serving God in a country far from home. Our hearts go out to her and to her family in this Mass along with our prayers that the prayers of Mary, who knows such sorrow, will bring them consolation and peace.

Lourdes Sabeniano  Gaspar Sabeniano – aunt and uncle

Rosemarie Cabrera – auntie of Fr. Joel

Melba Hisita – auntie of Fr. Joel

Jonathan Sabeniano – cousin of Fr. Joel

Cocoy Sabeniano – cousin of Fr. Joel

Carla Sabeniano – wife of Cocoy

Time and time again, as with all the priests of our diocese, Fr. Joel consoled and comforted his parishioners in their time of grief with the message of hope that our faith in Jesus gives to us.  And now it is we who are in need of comfort as we deal with his loss. And once again the questions arise in our hearts: “Why does God allow this to happen.” Why would God, in the great need that our church has for priests, take from us a good pastor who would bring God’s love and comfort to many people over many years ahead?

In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul spoke about the sting of death, the hurt and the pain that the death of someone close to us brings. The sting of death is sin, St. Paul teaches us. And so it is, for sin is the death of our sharing in God’s life. But the sting of death is also emptiness and loss. When someone whom we love or who is important to us dies, we feel a profound emptiness. It is not just a passive emptiness which rises in us when we lose someone dear to death. It is an aggressive emptiness which we suddenly find when someone is wrenched from us through an untimely death. A great black hole of nothingness where there once was someone who shared our life and brought joy and encouragement. It does not make sense to us. And we can even  become angry with God.

But God spoke to us about this through the Prophet Isaiah:” For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is 55: 8-9) We know that God has a plan for the whole of creation. And God has a part for us in that plan. Fr. Joel has fulfilled his part, and God has taken him into the life for which God had created him.

In the midst of all our questions and doubts we turn our eyes to that promise of life, that eternal life that lies at the heart of our faith in Jesus.

Throughout his life as a priest, Fr. Joel baptized people. Parents brought their children to him and he baptized them. Adults came to him and he baptized them. He knew that as he poured the water of baptism an old life was washed away and a new life took its place. The life of sin and death was gone for a new creation was brought about by Jesus through this priest’s hands.

This is what St. Paul was speaking about when he wrote: “For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” For what is perishable will perish and what is mortal will die. This is the way we were born. When Fr. Joel’s parents took him as an infant to be baptized, they were well aware of this, and they did not want their son to perish in the eternal nothingness of death. They knew that Jesus gives the gift of immortality and they wanted that for their son.

And because of that baptism, we have confidence that today we commend Fr. Joel Rama into immortality, into life in all its fullness, eternal and imperishable; into the tender and boundless love of God. We believe that because it is what Jesus has promised to all who believe in him.

We listened again this morning to the Gospel as St. John told about the time when a very close friend of Jesus took sick and died. When Jesus arrived at the village where Lazarus had lived, he had this conversation with Lazarus’ sister, Martha.

(John 11: ) Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God…”

Jesus didn’t say “I will give you the resurrection,” or “I will bring you to the resurrection,” He said: “I am the resurrection.” “I am the life.” If any of us lives beyond the moment of our death, and enters into eternal life, it is because of Jesus and the power of his resurrection from the dead.

That is why we gather here this morning with hope. Fr. Joel helped people build this relationship with the person of Jesus who is our resurrection and who is the life we will live forever. He nourished and cemented the union of his people with Jesus who is the resurrection and the life with the Eucharist, the body and blood of the Risen Christ, the bread from heaven. In doing these priestly labours, he deepened the communion that existed between himself and Jesus.

And so it is with confident hope we raise our hands and hearts to God in thanksgiving for the great love that God has for us who loves us so much that he shares his own life with us. As death claimed our brother, Fr. Joel, we could think that Jesus stepped forward and took him by his hand as he had done to the little girl in Capernaum and said to him:”my brother I say to you get up.” And then took him into the brightness of eternal life and love.

We will miss Fr. Joel. But we know where he is. And we have a sure and certain hope that where he is, we will be: Brought into life in all its fullness by Jesus, our Saviour and our Christ, when death is swallowed up in his victory.