Dear Ghassan, Rayya, Ranah,
and all of you, Paola’s mother, sisters, parents in law,
brother and sisters in law, friends and relatives,
We are living
a very intense moment in our life. The human language about death seems,
and is hard, harder more violent than any other thing. It comes
whenever it wants, without respect, without justice. It finds us always
unprepared, we fight, and we fight over and over, but, at the end, it wins,
having on us, leaving us overwhelmed and lost, weak and discouraged. Nothing
seems to be possible or have any sense.
We have tried to face, like a
duel, Paola’s death. With time, all the friends came together, with their
precious testimonies of love and friendship. Who couldn’t be present
physically, was present with his prayers, with his thoughts; brothers and
sisters got together. All allied with Ghassan and his family. But Death came at
the end.
The disease won over all the
hopes.
With this sufferance
we came to You, Father of heaven and earth, of life and death, bringing
to You the body of Paola which has been a temple for Your Spirit, bringing to
You the sufferance of this family. It’s only You who can alleviate our sorrow
and renew our hopes, It’s only You who can renew our faith in life and trace
new roads for the future ways of this family and of their friends.
We celebrate and sing o Lord
Your victory over death. You are alive and working among us because You won the
battle against death for ever. Death has no more power. It is not true that
Paola has died. Her life has been only transformed because You, Lord, came to
welcome her in Your arms. You gained her giving her Your life, You fed her with
Your bread of immortality, You loved her and covered her with Your care. For
this we do know and testify that, even now, You did not leave her. Where we
could not act, You did.
Together, other friends are
joining us to celebrate you victory over death, specially in the Church of
S.Antonio of Padova in Beirut: They can’t join us physically, but we
feel ourselves present in front of You, all united together, in one heart and
one soul.
This certainty, oh Lord, does
not relieve our pain. And we do need Your help. Paola will tell You about us,
because, just like You, she will never forget her daughters, her husband, her
mother, her sisters and her friends. Of all the things that she will ask you,
according to us, the most important is that You guard our spiritual and interior
life; this life that lasts for ever, this life that makes the little, big; this
makes the poor, rich. This life that makes us precious before your eyes, and
those of our brothers. This spiritual and interior life that can keep us united
to Paola in spite of the appearances. Some of us is more dead than Paola,
because he does not see You, does not feel You, because he does not welcome Your
spirit.
But our words and our prayers, oh Father are maybe not
suitable; most of the times we do not know what to ask you, neither how to ask
it. For that we beseech you to send your Spirit over this assembly, to have you
son Jesus really present. To Him we consign Paola. Please listen to your son
Jesus to whom You gave all the power. We entrust you Paola with infinite
confidence.
Amen