7 SEPTEMBER 2024
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated for James Sauber at Saint Joseph Parish by his pastor. Father Terrance Klein.
Going Home |
James Sauber |
Father Terrance Klein |
St Joseph 7.IX.2024 |
Isaiah 25: 6a, 7-9 2nd Corinthians 5: 1, 6-10 John 14: 1-6
When his disciples asked Our Lord why he spoke in parables, he told them because knowledge of the kingdom of God hadn’t been given to those who heard him (Mt 13: 11). So, he had to find ways to explain the significance of who he was and what he offered.
Notice how often Jesus compares himself and the Kingdom that he comes to bring to the place we’ve learned to call “home.” Indeed, in our Gospel he tells his disciples:
Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not, would I have told you
that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be (Jn 14: 1-3).
So, if we ask the question, what’s it like to live in heaven with our Lord and all his saints? Our Lord compares it to coming home.
In baptism Christ lovingly gave himself to each of us. And in the same baptism each of us was charged to become another Christ, to make him present to others in the way in which we live our lives. Jim was baptized in this font some ninety-five years ago. He’s wonderfully fulfilled the charge he was given in baptism. He's closely imitated Our Lord, making Jesus known to those who knew him, especially his family. How? Like Saint Joseph before him, Jim Sauber was a home builder.
The Sauber family has lived in the home on Third Street for more than sixty years. That beautiful house is more than a hundred years old. When Jim and Marilyn first moved there, it lacked modern heating and cooling, even electric outlets. Because James had mastered the crafts of carpentry, electricity, and plumbing he was able to create a modern and comfortable home for his family.
To the southeast of town, down on the river, Jim built a log cabin. Most of us are already amazed that he could do that. What’s more significant is his reason for doing so. He wanted a place where his family, his children and grandchildren, could go to love and enjoy the outdoors as Jim did. Jim remodeled or built houses so that his loved one could have a home. But buildings alone aren’t homes. They’re just edifices. And Jim didn’t just build; he created a home.
We would be hard pressed, I think, to find a family that spent more quality time together. The Sauber porches were places where uncles, aunts, and cousins could gather. Jim so often took his children hunting and fishing, and the family can count so many hours down by the river, cooking over an open fire and being together. What Jim loved; Jim shared: carpentry, hunting, fishing, chopping wood, collecting decoys, and auctions. But of course, most of all Jim loved his family, and he’s shared them with the world. His sons and daughters are such a testament to the quality of the loving home that James and Marilyn created for them.
Obviously, a home is place where we feel safe, but a home that models Christ must also be a seedbed of service. We do not live for ourselves but for the Lord. Jim knew that. Jim could be counted on by his parish, and he served Ellinwood as a member of our fire department and historical society. The home Jim created wasn’t limited to four walls.
Now at this altar where he was baptized and married, we give Jim back to the Lord. We allow him to go home after a long life of love and service. Obviously, we gather in Eucharist, asking the Good Lord to forgive whatever sins he committed through human weakness, but most of all we come to give thanks to the Lord, which is the very meaning of the word “Eucharist.”
We give the Lord thanks that he created Jim and us to know, to love, and to serve him. We thank the Lord for Jim’s life, for the loving wife and mother of his children whom he gave him to share it. Now we know that James lives in the abundance of the Lord’s Mountain which Isaiah described. He who created such a strong, loving home is now granted one with his Lord. Each of us prays that, having been given such a good example of what it means to create a home, to love and serve the Lord, we too might do the same.
We know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent,
should be destroyed, we have a building from God,
a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven (2 Cor 5: 1).
Only what we build in the Lord will last. Jim knew the same, and he fashioned such a loving, fruitful home. Dear Lord, grant us the grace and the perseverance to do the same.
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