A Homily and Tribute to Amanda

Amanda and Celia visited The Church of the Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Israel, in September 2019.

FR. MANOLING FRANCISCO, SJ

This homily was given by Fr. Manoling at a Zoom Mass he celebrated on the 9th day of Amanda’s death.

AMANDA   –  Feast of Timothy and Titus

The Mystery of Human Freedom

No one among us is fully free.  Our freedom is restricted by many factors—socially, by our culture and society, family and friends; interiorly, by our fears and anxieties, addictions and compulsions, indifference and self-absorption; biologically, by our genetic predispositions, chemical and hormonal imbalances.

Discoveries and insights in psychology have taught the Church to be more compassionate and understanding.  We are invited to be less critical and certain about our judgments of others, as we come to a deeper understanding of our unfreedoms.

In her lucid moments, Amanda was more truly free.  And she used that freedom that came to her intermittently in a most beautiful manner—devoting herself fully to the Lord.  Tita Celia writes, “Through the many years of Amanda’s mental illness and suffering, her faith like Job’s was severely tested, but in her lucid moments, she gave herself entirely to God.”

Suffering Made Meaningful

Suffering in itself is not a virtue.  It is not something we seek, for suffering diminishes and destroys

However, suffering can become a virtue, if it evokes from deep within us patience and endurance, greater compassion for others, and deeper trust in the Lord. What matters is not the depth of our physical or emotional anguish, but how we manage our suffering.  How we deal with suffering can make it meaningful.  Amanda taught us how; she taught us much.

Tita Celia shares

Amanda left us a beautiful and powerful legacy on how to truly love and obey the Lord faithfully in one’s life no matter how much suffering and difficulty one’s experiences in life bring.  Her suffering and pain due to her mental illness were not wasted on earth.  In fact, for us Catholics, Fr Jocis explained all suffering of a faithful soul is redemptive if offered for others who suffer or are not in the state of grace….  Her death was truly meaningful and the circumstances of her death were not a tragedy but a victory in the Lord

A Life of Service and Faith

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul the Apostle lists the qualities of a bishop: “a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.”  He then enumerates the qualities of a deacon: “Similarly, deacons must be dignified, not deceitful, not addicted to drink, not greedy for sordid gain, holding fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.”  Finally, he mentions the qualities of “the women”:  “Women, similarly, should be dignified, not slanderers, but temperate and faithful in everything.”

Much debate has surrounded the women mentioned by Timothy.  Some say they were the wives of the deacons.  Others contend that they were deaconesses.  In fact, the Early Church had women deacons, such as Phoebe who is mentioned by Paul as a deaconess.  Later on, these women deacons were called the more generic term, servants of the Lord.

Amanda was a modern-day deaconess, who devoted her life to serving the Lord as an active member of Singles for Christ.  In the past several days, we have heard from her friends in SFC how she devoted herself to serving the Lord and her community.

Apart from being a servant of the Lord, she too was a woman of deep faith.  In her reflection in White Butterfly entitled, “God Seems to be Silent”, she writes: “I would like to remind myself to remember the graces I receive from trusting God.  Things may not come immediately, but they come in God’s perfect time.”

She knew she belonged not to this world but to God.  She muses, “As a Christian, my life is not really my own…. [in order] to survive life’s uncertainties, I must relinquish ownership over things I cannot control”.

And while visiting an 18th-century observatory in India, Amanda shares, “As I looked at one of the older sundials in the world, nature was actually moving… communicating… manifesting.  I was powerless to watch God move time by the setting of the sun billions of miles away.”

And so, Tita Celia shares that Amanda was happy, full of life, and desired to live.  “We were hugging each other in bed and praying the rosary together moments before she died.”

In our grief, we surrender Amanda to the Lord of Life.  Despite our grief, we thank her for using her freedom which she experienced unrestricted and unfettered irregularly by loving and serving the Lord.  We thank her for teaching us to make our suffering meaningful by embracing it for the well-being of others.  And we petition the Lord to welcome Amanda, a woman of faith and service, into His eternal home where she will be truly free and fully alive in the Temple of the Lord.