With lots of cardinal appearances nearing the 1 year anniversary of my mom’s funeral, I’ve decided to commit the eulogy I gave to paper.

My mom was a saint. Everyone will think ‘of course he says that, she was his mom’. It seemed a daunting task to prove the proposition. Not for a lack of evidence, but because of my meager ability to synthesize. I decided to take the easy way out and simply recite a Bible verse. I even had an esoteric one in mind. That’s when the strange confluence of incidents began, starting with the inability to find said verse.

I sat back on the couch a little distressed. That’s when the ‘song stuck in the head’, that I really hadn’t paid much attention to the last few days played again. It was just the last few notes of the previous Sunday’s closing hymn. The six notes were ‘at the end of the day’.

Then came the brilliant idea to read the lyrics of that hymn at the funeral. With only the last six words known, it can’t possibly be easy to find, I thought. Wrong once again. The hymn is called Lord of All Hopefulness. So I will read those lyrics for you now.

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy
Whose trust ever child like, no cares can destroy.
Be there at our waking, and give us we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe.
Be there at our labors, and give us we pray,
Your strength in our hearts Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace.
Be there at our homing, and give us we pray,
Your love in our hearts Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm.
Be there at our sleeping, and give us we pray,
Your peace in our hearts Lord, at the end of the day.

That’s probably the most beautiful hymn I’ve never heard. I was pleased with myself for the next couple days until I realized how strangely fortuitous the whole situation was. So off to the Wikipedia page for the hymn I went.

It is an English hymn, sung to an Irish tune, which fits the family heritage to a tea. Turns out it is one of the most popular hymns in the worldwide Anglican church. At this point I’m wondering why I heard it at Catholic mass. The next sentence relates that the hymn can be heard on occasion in US Catholic Churches. While the hymn is used for all occasions such as weddings and funerals, it was written primarily for children. It was published in 1931, when my mom was 5 years old. Was she familiar with it? I don’t know. It was composed by Jan Struther. Of course her name starts with a ‘J’, just like everyone in our family. End of story now, except for one small detail. Jan Struther would become very famous (to the Greatest Generation anyway), but not for writing hymns.


In 1937, her editor asked her to start a running column about “an ordinary woman doing ordinary things”. That column would become wildly popular and lead to the 1942 six Oscar winning movie titled Mrs. Miniver. Jan Struther’s works were according to Winston Churchill, “responsible for winning the war as far as home front morale was concerned”.


World War II was of course pivotal in my mom and dad’s life, along with everyone in the Greatest Generation.


So, what were left with ‘at the end of the day’ as it were, is ‘an ordinary woman doing ordinary things’.


This reminded me of St. Therese of Lisieux, known as ‘The Little Flower’, who is a saint precisely for performing small acts of love. Her namesake, Mother Teresa of Calcutta would paraphrase her philosophy:


“God has no need of us to do extraordinary things. What God wants from us is to do ordinary things, with great love.”


That was my mom.




P.S. Researching how to spell Lisieux, I discovered my mom died on St. Therese’s 150th birthday.       


P.P.S. The moment this eulogy was fully formed, I called my sister to check on the funeral arrangements for my mom. Almost immediately upon her answering, a woman came to the door to inform her that her daughter, my niece, had died. You can read more about that at the article entitled This Is For The Bird’s: The Sequel.