Mourning, Holy Communion, and the Hope of a New Shepherd
Today, we stood in the Church—just days before the Conclave begins, still in the Easter Season, still in the Novemdiales.
Suffering. Death. Resurrection.
It all feels tangible—and yet, somehow, it feels like liminal space.
Noticing the portrait and candle set out to honor our Holy Father—Pope Francis—was a quiet reminder of his life, his service, and the weight of this moment. The Church is still in mourning—observing the Novemdiales, the nine days of prayer and remembrance.
In memory of him.
And as I stood there, I couldn’t help but remember another candle…another portrait…another goodbye.
Another more personal grief.
Today marks the second anniversary of my husband’s funeral Mass—a memory that lives quietly beneath everything else we carry, often when we are in Church.
In memory of him.
Still praying for God’s will to unfold—for my life, for my children’s—while asking Him to raise up a shepherd, a new Pope, after His own heart.
The Church is alive, yes—look at the baptisms and First Holy Communicants to know it’s true—but it’s aching.
We hold on with hope, begging God to reveal Himself in these troubling and tender times. Grief lingers, even as joy quietly abounds.
Because at that same Mass, young First Communicants came forward—small hands open, hearts wide-eyed, reverent, and ready, in white dresses and in suits—like little brides and grooms, veiled and vested in hope.
Their wonder filled the sanctuary.
I stood there remembering how many treasured moments happen at the altar.
The anniversary of one of my children—eleven years ago yesterday—and the others, before and after, who also came forward to receive their First Holy Communion. Maybe you were celebrating a First Holy Communion this weekend—or maybe, like me, you were simply invited to remember your own or your children’s.
And remembering today—two years ago—the second anniversary of my husband’s funeral Mass, and receiving the Eucharist beside his casket, when we commended him to the mercy of God at this very altar, where we receive the Bread of Life. The place where he had so often received became the place where we entrusted him fully to the arms of the Father—our grief mingling with the sacred mystery.
We remember…We do this in memory of Him—the One who died so we may live.
Somehow, even in loss, we keep coming to the table and we are fed at the altar.
I thought of my own journey. Baptized at ten in another church—an early yes to a God I was still getting to know, who quickly became my Shepherd and my safe place.
“The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”
Psalm 23
Years later, I was welcomed into the Catholic Church through Eucharist and Confirmation at the Easter Vigil. Just months later, standing again at that altar—this time for the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Then again, when baptizing our children into the Church—into the foundation of faith that formed our family—a faith not just built on love but held steady by the Rock.
Today it was a different altar, but the same sacrifice.
The same Christ.
The same Meal.
Today’s Gospel—John 21—is so fitting for all of it.
The moment when the risen Jesus meets His disciples again by the sea—at the very place where it all began.
They had returned to what they knew: the sea, the nets, the work. And Jesus meets them there—again. At the Sea of Tiberias, the very place where He first called them three years earlier.
He reminds them that it’s going to be hard. But He is with them.
He feeds them.
Restores Peter—made new, like we are made new each day.
And then He invites them—and each of us—to follow Him.
It feels fitting—on this day of memory, mystery, and prayer—that the Gospel is the one in which Jesus turns to Peter and asks, “Do you love Me?” Three times.
The same Peter who had denied Him three times—now called again, reaffirmed, entrusted.
Not to shame—but to restore. To invite him, Peter, back into relationship.
To entrust him with the care of the Church He loves.
Peter—the one who would hold the keys of the Church as we prayerfully, hopefully—maybe even anxiously—await our new Shepherd while we grieve the loss of one who left us.
Today, as we pray for his successor, soon to be chosen, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide and provide—to give us a Holy Father who will love Christ and feed His sheep with humility, courage, faithfulness, truth and love.
Jesus didn’t just restore Peter—He called him deeper. He calls each of us deeper, too.
That’s the invitation—to Peter, to us, to all who believe: to show our love not only in words but in the laying down of our lives.
To die to self.
To follow Christ through joy, through sorrow, through suffering.
He never promised ease. But He promised Himself.
He still shows up.
In the silence.
In the mystery.
At the altar.
He still shows up. In the silence. In the mystery. At the altar.
Heather Lebano
He still offers Himself in the breaking of the bread. And somehow, again and again, He gives us the strength to keep going.
So I received the Eucharist today—remembering.
Carrying the ache of grief—the memory of a beautiful yet heartbreaking Funeral Mass, the joy of children receiving Christ for the first time, the weight of Church history, and the quiet hope that death is never the end.
Because He still comes.
He still feeds.
He still calls.
And Christ remains.
At the altar, it all returns—grief and joy, memory and mystery, death and resurrection.
And Christ still meets us there.
And after this, He said to him, “Follow Me.” (John 21:19)
May we take time in the coming days to pray for the Church, for the cardinals gathered in discernment, and for the new shepherd who will be called to lead us.
May he be a man after God’s own heart—one who loves Christ, feeds His sheep, and leads with humility, courage, faithfulness, truth, and love.
And May we, too, grow in fidelity and surrender—renewing our own yes to follow Christ wherever He leads, from the altar into the world.
“Peter is not great because he was intelligent or good, but because he had faith and knew how to follow the Lord.”
Pope Benedict XVI
Homily, June 29, 2012
