I am exhausted.

Physically, emotionally, spiritually.

It is finished. We laid dad to rest today.

Up early in the morning on coffee and prayers…my own but mostly others. It was a simple service. I wrote the eulogy, the message and order of service this past week and it went according to plan.

The funeral home was wonderful. They thought of everything and our funeral director, a young woman, was very good. The chapel was nice and dad was well prepared. The drive down was fairly quiet. A caravan of family and friends converged from different locales for the same reason…because of the same person.

The days have been one of ache and numbness punctuated by an odd joy of being close to sisters and brothers, to mother and father. Today however, the day of the funeral, was one of duty. It was a day oddly bereft of deep emotion for me and filled with the blessed tasks at hand to keep me occupied and distracted.

To be able to bury my father; to do for him one small final service of laying him to rest; to preach the message out of Luke 15 and the parable of the prodigal son and to pray over him and those who loved him was healing for me.

I got to hold his hand one last time. He was cold but no more than one who has come in from a cool winter evening. Cold in a way that made you want to warm him. To get him a blanket and a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

The service was short. I have never liked long funerals and since this was my father and I led the service I was selfish. There was a family viewing, a public viewing and a half hour service followed by a brief grave side service. Music was played during the viewing from dad’s eclectic collection…for the service – Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman whose CDs were found mixed in with the music of Mariah Carey, Queen, Ozzy Osbourne, Roy Orbison and others who were not played at the service.

When the service was over, myself, my brothers and one of dad’s friends served as pall bearers and brought his casket to the hearse and from there piled into vehicles and headed to Mount Hamilton Cemetery where we once again carried his casket to the grave. It’s a nice location on the leeward side of slow gentle slope. There was a farm adjacent to the cemetery and all in all it was a pleasant location.

I am rambling. I am thankful for God and the prayers of many; I am thankful for friends and loved ones, that we are able to gather together before the world and declare for one-another. I am sad for every lost opportunity this death represents and sad that life will push me to place not much different than before Dad died…a place where I forget that the ones I love will not always be there to be called and visited; a place where the infinitely smaller things like money overwhelm the infinitely more important things like love.

For now though love is foremost on my mind and I am grateful because where there is love there is God.

Below is the text of the service and graveside ceremony.

Prayer

Lord, we are gathered here because of the life of one man – Peter James Cantelon, who passed away last week. Each of us has different reasons for being here; different needs and feelings and I pray that you would attend to each of us according to our needs. In Christ’s name I pray – Amen.

Peter James Cantelon – Eulogy

Peter James Cantelon, my father, was born and raised in Toronto on January 12 1943 to Isabel Cantelon. He never knew his father Lloyd Russell and was raised by Isabel and his stepfather Willard. Dad’s identical twin brother Mike resides in Florida. He has a brother Robert William, known as Bill, and sisters Susie, Sheila, Kathy and Debbie.

Dad was once married to Monica and had four children – Peter, Angel, Lori and Susan. He was later married to Mary Ann and had two more children – Kevin and Bill.

Dad loved horses, the track, bingo, cribbage and of course – the Leafs. I think he would be pleased that there’s a Bingo hall right next door and that his casket is blue. I am also certain he would be happy to have missed the Leafs getting crushed by Boston last Friday night. He also loved music…all of the music you heard earlier was from his own collection.

It is said by his friends that he spoke fondly of his children and often and perhaps he saw us as something right in his life.

Dad made a lot of choices in life, as do all of us. Many of those choices were bad – they hurt him and those around him. Many of those choices were the kind that we will never understand or comprehend. There can be no doubt that those choices had consequences for both him and those who were close to him but no man is defined solely by his poor choices for every man is a complicated mix of decision and circumstance.

Dad was 68 years old when he died. He was sick and broken but in the end he had friends and was loved. Any pain he was in is over now and we are here to lay him to rest.

Sermon

Read Luke 15:1-3;11-32

Some people identify with the son who left home; some with the father who receives him back, some with the older brother and still others with a combination of them.

The story is of a son who leaves his family taking with him his inheritance. In those days asking for your inheritance before your father died is a little like saying “I wish you were dead but since you are not let me have my inheritance now”.

The father unquestioningly complies and the son leaves to spend his money on “reckless living” which is code for partying, gambling, drunkenness, prostitutes, and other forms of excess.

After years of this lifestyle, his money gone and his life a ruin the son decides to go home again. He is a Jewish man who while once wealthy had been reduced to the humiliating and unclean task of feeding pigs and envying them their food.

The man decides to go home not because he is sorry for what he has done to himself and his family but because he is starving, broke and hopes for at least a job as a servant. He has a plan to tell his father “I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” But there is no sense of remorse, there is no sense of repentance…the sense of having recognized and turned from a life of brokenness and darkness in exchange for something better. In fact it seems certain that if the son’s money had been endless he never would have decided to go home at all.

So we see this son going home and we do not feel a great deal of sympathy perhaps. Maybe we are like the older son in this.

Now notice as the son approaches home…before the son can get close, the father sees him while he is “a long way off” and what does he do? It says he felt compassion. It says he ran and embraced and kissed him. A wealthy landowner in those days did not run. An old and distinguished man would not hike up his robes and tear off down the road because it looked ridiculous. This type of man waited as people came to him, as was due his station. Not this time. Not this man. Not this father…he runs to his son before he can offer his excuses and plead for a role of service.

The father clothes him in his best robe, he gives him a ring, a symbol of authority and wealth, he gives him shoes and kills the fattened calf – the calf that was likely being saved for sacrifice – and uses it for a huge celebration.

The elder brother, the obedient son, the one who always did what he was told and never shamed the family, the one who feels personally wronged by the younger son…he hears the sounds of celebration and comes to learn that his brother – the one who ran off with half the family wealth has come back only to be treated as if nothing has happened – is back…and big brother is angry. He is bitter and he is furious.

It isn’t fair. This jerk deserves nothing. He should be left to starve. He should be punished. He should reap what he has sown. His brother gets this awesome lamb to roast and his dad never even once gave him a scrawny bony little goat to roast with his friends. It is unjust and he will take no part in the celebration.

The father learns of his eldest son’s anger and explains – “Son you are always with me and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.”

Who are we in this story – are we the younger brother? The older brother? The father? How do we feel?

This story is about God and it is about us. It is about God’s character in response to us – his children – whether we are the older or we are the younger brother or sister.

This God sees his lost children a long way off and this God runs out to embrace them. This God does not wait for excuses before holding his child; clothing them and celebrating. That is the nature of this God.

Dad ran away a long time ago…he ran away from family, from life and from himself too…I do not know what awaits him now but I know this…

He is in the hands of this God. He is in the hands of a God who runs to his child while they are yet a long way off and rejoices at their return…not waiting for excuses. He is in this God’s hands now – and for that I am grateful. For in this God there is love, hope, life everlasting and forgiveness…may each of us find it.

Let us close our eyes, bow our heads and pray together with the words that Christ taught us by saying –

Our Father
who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
forever and ever
Amen

Graveside

We are here to lay to rest the body of Peter James Cantelon, each of us with different notions and feelings but all of us bound together here and connected by and through his life.

Nearly 400 years ago the English poet John Donne wrote the following poem as he lay in bed confronted by the reality of his own impending death.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a small piece be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As much as if a nation were.
As well as if a manor of your own
Or of your friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

We are diminished by death because each of us is involved with one another but thankfully death is not the last word. Let us pray:

Lord you are the one who gave us these words “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” And by these words we know we are mortal. But you also spoke to us through your servant John who wrote: “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Lord we commend the soul of Peter James Cantelon into your hands knowing that he can be in no better. Have mercy on each of us and grant us your peace as we leave this place.

Amen