Young suffer most from poor eulogies

To be good eulogies must capture a key time that decides a person’s life; a conversion, an enlightenment, a meeting with someone, an encounter with the truth, a sickness that leads to a review of what is important in one’s life. Many of us were let to higher things through hearing of people who triumphed over failure.

Thomas Merton, maintained that life gives a fair deal, but the evil one wants to destroy us. The time of grace (an unmerited gift) comes when it is proposed to us to make a decision; “Shall I leave behind some old barren certainties, vices and sins, or shall I stay where I am”?

Especially for Christians this is a decisive moment because the meaning of everything else is at stake here. The risk is to remain a spectator of ones own existence and to live the faith half way.

I want eulogies to clarify peoples lives. Wealth and fame are like anchors which hold us at bay and prevent us from setting sail again for new and great adventures. It is also necessary to hear eulogies of courage and new beginnings; against what holds us back from living fully, such as, fear, selfish calculations, the guarantees that come from staying safe.

Young people suffer the most from poor eulogies; they want to hear the encouraging truth about people who are important in their young lives.

The author of good eulogies is an artist, crafting how one comes to terms with life’s journey. The best could come from people writing their own final testament.

What kind of person have I become? What is the only success worth having in the end? For us it is to find peace with God, oneself and the world; in the total truth of one’s existence?

Fr. Harry Clarke Summerland