The Funeral

So it was arranged that the funeral would take place in two places—here, of course, but also at a Melkite Rite parish in Ottawa for those coming from elsewhere.

The services in Ottawa were composed of a burial service Friday evening June 17th and a Divine Liturgy (or Mass) on Saturday morning. Approximately 400 attended the burial service including 4 bishops, 16-20 priests, 2 deacons, and members of Archbishop Raya’s family.

Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim, the Melkite bishop of all of Canada, officiated, and more than half the service was in Arabic. Fourteen of us attended and did some of the readings and songs—in English.

Bishop Ibrahim gave a beautiful homily. A representative from the apostolic nunciature read a letter of condolence from the papal nuncio to Canada, a letter which included a message of sympathy from Pope Benedict XVI.

The service lasted just about twenty minutes short of three hours, and we figured that was the usual. But Bishop Ibrahim said, “This may be the longest funeral ever in the Melkite Church.” We shouldn’t have been surprised. Archbishop Raya, who loved ritual and ceremony, generally did the maximum, and he had specified in detail what he wanted at his funeral.

Then Saturday afternoon his body was brought to Combermere where we had a Roman Rite reception of the body in the afternoon and a Roman Rite wake and wake service in the evening.

In the front of the chapel were several exceptionally beautiful floral arrangements, most of them a gift of Raymond Bahous, Archbship Raya’s cousin who is a florist in Toronto. Another arrangement from local friends contained 88 roses, one for each year of the archbishop’s life.

On Sunday we had a Byzantine Liturgy in the morning and a Byzantine wake service in the evening. On Monday we had the Byzantine Rite burial service. So Archbishop Raya may well have set a record for the greatest number of funeral services as well as the longest!

Only a few who came for the services at Madonna House had come from elsewhere, and these included four men from a choir in Toronto, and Lesya Nahachewski.

Lesya, a professor from the University of Saskatchewan, led the process of nomination of Archbishop Raya for the Nobel Peace prize and is doing the not inconsiderable work connected with this. The first nominator was Uri Avanery, a former cabinet minister in the Israeli government. (A person must be alive when nominated, but can receive it after death.)

The men’s choir sang magnificently; and the Arabic funeral chants (which we also heard at the other Byzantine services) are indescribably moving.

Our burial service, like the one in Ottawa, included everything according to the archbishop’s wishes and was both long and very beautiful. It began in our island chapel, continued in a funeral procession, and ended at the cemetery at St. Mary’s. (Anticipating both rain and heat, we had rented a tent.)

At the burial itself, Fr. Ron Cafeo, the MH priest who had worked closely with and traveled with the archbishop for many years, sprinkled the coffin with soil from several places dear to the archbishop, including Zahle (the town in Lebanon where he was born), Haifa, and Nazareth.

At the reception following, our usual buffet fare was augmented by trays and trays of baklava, a very sweet Middle Eastern pastry.

Our guests from the Melkite Church told us that we had carried off the services very well, and our tireless schola director, Veronica Dudych, was even offered a job by one of the visiting Eastern Rite priests!

At supper at the main house Mike Fagan sang “To Dream the Impossible Dream,” which the archbishop had requested, and St. Mary’s had a Lebanese supper.

I wish we had room to give credit to all the people, both in Madonna House and outside it, for all the planning and work and love and generosity that went into those days and services. Suffice it to say that people walked many, many “extra miles”—many of those miles very hidden.

The Ordination

The funeral was June 20th. Then on July 9th we had the ordination of one of our members—Kieran Kilcommons—to the priesthood.

This was a joyous event, which started the evening before when the numerous members of Kieran’s family who had come mainly from southern Alberta but from Hawaii, France, and Ireland as well, gave a party.

As for the ordination itself, 43 priests attended, including ours. The priests who came were mostly our associates, priests from the seminary, and priests from our diocese—and many local friends came as well. Even the parents of the bishop of our diocese came. (He said he thought they came primarily to see Madonna House!) All in all, the chapel was filled to overflowing.

As Bishop Richard Smith said, “This is a day of great joy and thanksgiving for Madonna House, for the diocese of Pembroke, and for the universal Church.”

We certainly felt that joy. Fr. Kieran himself, who shares with Archbishop Raya, though in an Irish way, a certain lightheartedness and a love of life, was radiant.

The reception in the afternoon was a good illustration of our life. Some of us were simply present at the reception, able to relax, enjoy the food, and visit with those who had come. Others were serving food, doing dishes, and cleaning up.

Still others had to leave, as all the shops, closed for the morning, were open for the afternoon. Finally, others left to clean up Cana Colony for the families coming for the following week of retreat-vacation. Fr. Kieran, meanwhile, spent the afternoon giving first blessings.

The next day was his first Mass and the day after that he worked. Then he traveled—first to Alberta and then to Ireland to visit with family and friends.

Fireworks

And the celebrations for the Archbishop were not over! The Melkite Rite has a custom of remembering the deceased on the 40th day after the death.

In this case, the 40th day coincided with the archbishop’s 64th anniversary of priesthood and the Feast of St. Elias, a very popular feast in the Middle East, one that is celebrated by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike. There, in honor of the saint who went up to heaven in a fiery chariot, they have nightlong fireworks.

So here in Combermere we had the special prayers after Mass. Then in the evening when, after a weeding bee, we had punch and popcorn and—believe it or not—our own fireworks synchronized with music. Once more, the archbishop had given us a celebration, and it was one that he would have loved!

And what are we doing in between and during these major events, and now that they are over? Well, this time of year, there is Cana Colony, summer school for our visitors, the busy season for the gift shop, and of course, lots of farm work and food processing.
Well, there’s other work, too, and other smaller events, but putting together this issue of the paper and writing this diary were like trying to squish my feet into a pair of shoes two sizes too small.