Reflections on a Meaningful Life: Funeral Homily for Xavi Kiemde

Xavier Jean Kiemde, September 13, 2012

Written and delivered by Patty Stromen, Church of the Ascension, Minneapolis, MN

There are many ways that we describe what a meaningful life is. 

Some people say it is the length of life, some people say it is the possessions that we own, some people say it is the relationships that we form.

As Christians we have a very clear definition for a meaningful life, we believe our vocation, what gives greatest meaning to life, what we are born for, is to embrace God’s love and reflect it back to the world. That reflection of God’s love is at the heart of a meaningful life. To quote Fr. Greg Tolaas, “Let love meet love.”

Baby Xavier, baby Xavi,  during his life in the womb, and his brief time outside his mother’s womb, lived the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for.  He experienced God’s love perfectly, and he reflected God’s love to each of us.

In the first reading from Isaiah, we are given an image of God never forgetting us, writing each of our names on the palms of God’s hand. 

We might hear this and think, could this really be true?  Could God really love me that deeply? God’s abiding love as described by Isaiah is more deeply embedded in each of us by witnessing Melissa and Francois’s love for  Xavi. 

From the moment he was conceived, when he was a twinkle in God’s eyes, he was loved deeply by Melissa and Francois.  When faced with impossible decisions, they chose to mirror God’s love for each of us, in their decision to honor, receive, and embrace Xavi’s life, however his life came to them.  Melissa and Francois celebrated the perfect conditions of love and warmth inside Melissa’s womb and parented Xavi before he was ever placed in their arms.

Could there be a clearer or deeper image of God’s love for each of us?

Lest we romanticize God’s love for us and our love for God, and lest we romanticize the challenges that you faced Melissa and Francois,  we are given the Gospel reading from Matthew that Fr. Michael just proclaimed.

I have to believe it isn’t by chance that we hear, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike”, and yet only two verses further, 

Even with the pure and simple faith of a child, believing that our ever-loving God, along with all the angels and saints are welcoming Xavi home to heaven with a huge party, and hopefully each of us some day, we know it is almost impossible to say good-bye to this beautiful little boy.

So how do we do this?  

We place our good-bye to Xavi’s body in the midst of our belief that his spirit is soaring in God’s hands. We do it by believing, as the poem that Francois and Fabio read says, (which by the way is a poem that was memorized by Francois when he was a young boy in school): 

“Those who have died have never left, they are in the shades that become clearer, they are in the water that runs."

Xavi is in our hearts forever.

Xavi has led the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for – he has, and will continue, to live perfectly in God’s love, and to reflect God’s love back to us.  

In thanksgiving for this most precious gift you have given us God, we give the precious gift of this beautiful baby boy back to you.  We trust you continue to love him and cradle him in your arms.

May we trust that you cradle us in your arms in the joys and the and the sorrows that today brings.

Like a little child, in his father’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.
Like a little child, in his mother’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.

“What do you want for me, God?”: An Introduction to My Vocation Story

by Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde, Vis Companion

Note: the following was originally written for and published at the Visitation Monastery Minneapolis blog site. This is the first in a series of vocation narratives, or memoirs, offered by Melissa here.

Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life. – Parker Palmer in “Let Your Life Speak”

We all have a vocation. Each and every one of us. Whether we are religious or lay members of the world, we have a calling --something we have wrestled with consciously, or unconsciously, and found ourselves immersed in --- a "life telling us who we are," as Parker Palmer says. These days, I'm thinking a lot about my vocation and what my life has told, tells me.

In the Spring of 2002, whilst teaching at North Community High School in North Minneapolis, my life was sort of “screaming” at me. Immersed in a high poverty setting, (where I lost half of my students every year), attending to the development of relevant and hopefully inspiring curriculum for my students --as well as the content of their individual life narratives, gifts, skills and areas for growth - alongside my own -- well, let's just say I was a bit achy and itchy in my soul for what might be next. I wasn't wholly satisfied with my work in the classroom and the system in which I was operating; so I started writing letters to God. In these journal letters, I described my circumstances as a public school educator and I posed questions. "What do you want for me, God? What do you want me to do? Where do you want me to go? You know my heart, my longings and my desire to serve Love. Please guide me."

I was called to be an educator, without a doubt in my mind or heart. But surely, God would not want me to continue in a fashion where I was daily filled with despair -- left with less hope and offering a diminishing amount of love, promise, and life-giving energy to myself and others?

In my writing and beseeching, there are stops and starts, almost self-conscious pauses. Was I feeling badly for the outpouring of words on paper? Was my prose too filled with complaint or dissatisfaction as I described the conditions of my life? Surely, I had been so abundantly blessed in my birth and journey to date -- given so much from loving parents and in and through my catholic faith, educational opportunities and work -- that I wouldn't be abandoned. (Was that my fear – rejection or abandonment from God?) I couldn't stop short in my writing and queries to the Divine, I had to continue in my prayers wondering about my next steps in this journey as a woman of love on the earth.

In an entry recorded on Saturday, June 1, 2002, I wrote, "I know if I were born a man, you would have me be a priest. Because I am a woman, do you want me to pursue becoming a nun?"

I remember writing the question down, and then immediately closing my journal. It was a terrifying notion, this nun business. First of all, I wanted to be married and have kids. I loved men and dreamed of partnering with one and having a child or two someday. (I longed to parent - beyond the scope of the classroom, beyond working with and nurturing the beautiful young people in my classroom who I was privileged to teach. I longed for giving birth and the gift of raising a babe from infancy to adulthood.)

In an entry recorded on Saturday, June 1, 2002, I wrote, "I know if I were born a man, you would have me be a priest. Because I am a woman, do you want me to pursue becoming a nun?" -Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

When I considered my calling to the priesthood, it felt so giant, real, awesome, but seemingly beyond my gender -- according to the church powers that be. I had reconciled my desire to preach --to lead a congregation in contemplative, prayerful thought and action -- through my work as a classroom teacher. My love for scripture and desire to break open sacred texts for inspiration and life lessons translated well, on most days, to my tasks as an English educator. Considering my recorded journal question, “[D]o you want me to pursue becoming a nun?” I wondered, too, how I could turn to another religious vocation because of the seeming limitations of my gender? I simply thanked God for making me female, so that I never had to choose between marriage and a life as a celibate priest. I set my journal down and went about my life.

For the record: At the time, I didn't really know I was doing discernment work. At this juncture, I had never even heard the word "discernment." But that would all change.

On Sunday, June 2, 2002, following mass at the Church of St. Philip in North Minneapolis, I was standing up on the alter, next to the piano with the rest of the choir members I sang with, when a small woman with gray hair and wearing a large silver cross approached me.

"Melissa, Hello. I'm Sister Katherine of the Visitation Monastery of North Minneapolis. We are having a 'Come and See' weekend for single young women. We are wondering if you want to come and see about being a nun."

I about fell over. I was wrapping microphone cord around my arm at the time, and believe I almost tripped at Sister's invitation.

Not only is God not subtle with me, but my life circumstances have never been, as they speak loudly trying to get my attention. Of course I would put my query out to the Beloved regarding my vocation, and of course I would receive this direct response! But the very next day? Whew.

*****************************************************************************

Stay tuned for the unfolding of this vocation narrative, as I relay my discernment process, given the entrance of the Visitation Sisters in my life.

On Being Fed: A Reflection on Mass and Mealtime at the Monastery -- with Ms. Marguerite!

It had been a while. A month at least, since I had stepped foot in the Visitation Sister's North Minneapolis Monastery. And goodness how my bones were missing the place! (While I have the privilege of writing and posting blogs for the sisters from my perch in St. Paul, it's not daily that I have the good fortune to spend time on the ground floor with these beloved women. This last month was a special exception, too -- for not being explicitly, physically present with my Northside crew -- as I had been blessedly holed up with my newborn daughter, Ms. Marguerite Marie Kiemde. Suffice it to say, our eventual visit to the Monastery last Tuesday evening was a special, sacred time re-connecting with my dear spiritual sister clan, and introducing Baby Maggie to the nuns.

In reflecting on the experience of taking my new little girl to meet the sisters for the first time, I back up and find myself asking:
What does a visit to the Northside Monastery entail?
What does my daughter glean from such an encounter?
What good energy eeks out and over and upon a child in this environment?
Who does she meet?
What gets discussed?
What does she learn?
How might she be changed?

And it occurs to me:

These are questions I could pose for any woman or man coming to the monastery for the first time!

As I work to compose this reflection, I note that what Maggie Kiemde encounters and is nurtured by, might be similar for those visiting and possibly discerning further alliance or membership with the blessed Salesian order.

On this particular evening, there was an intimate gathering of people for mass and the following dinner meal. Besides the sisters, my husband François, baby Maggie, and myself, we had one other lay visitor and our dear priest. Brendan was an Americorp volunteer, originally hailing from the East Coast, and returning to the monastery for mass and nourishment - having found the Salesian charism a welcome space for him in his Minnesota tenure. As a graduate from a De LaSalle institute, he felt at home in the monastery. I shook his hand and felt instantly like I'd known him for years. (He physically resembled another friend completing his Masters in Divinity out East.) Fr. Jim Radde, our Jesuit presider, as an old friend newly acquainted with my husband, was warm and deeply contemplative as he said mass, inviting us as usual into a spiritual space piercing both my heart and mind. ("What does it mean to really love yourself? How do fear and self-doubt impair our abilities?")

With our daughter Marguerite calm and resting in her baby carrier, I found myself at peace in the Fremont Avenue Monastery living room. In this chapel space, with these women, and in this configuration of blessed humans listening and reflecting together on scripture, I was at home. I took inventory of my bones, my limbs, noted my breathing, and exhaled realizing how much I crave this kind of experience, this community.

Our evening flowed from a mass with communal reflection time and space -- where each was invited to give voice to his or her prayerful thoughts, questions, hopes-- to a dining experience complete with charged, inspiring conversation.

Over a blessed meal at the table in the sisters' dining room, I heard from Sr. Mary Frances about a latest leadership initiative involving Northside community members. I took note as Fr. Radde, S.J. challenged Brendan about his peaceful communication practices as the young man prepares for employment with Pax Christi International in Belgium. I chimed in with my own questions and theoretical and applied knowledge of story-telling when Fr. Jim brought up his passions around restorative justice circles. I smiled as our own circle of stories intersected and overlapped while we enjoyed our pot roast and vegetables. Sister elaborated on the Leadership Initiative. Having come from a recent convening at St. Jane House, she shared some of the goals of the diverse group of participants:

"We are teaching principles of Salesian Leadership and inviting the members to pose their own goals for change. They will create action plans over the course of the next ten months."

Father disclosed his sadness having learned he wouldn't be making a long-planned trip to Uganda, but eeked of hope and enthusiasm around how his study of narrative practices would be persued in local urban classrooms. My daughter slept, my husband smiled and sighed. The sisters fawned over the resting presence of our little girl. I moved back and forth in my mind between Maggie's life here as a child, and an imagined space in proximity to the newly acquainted with Brendan going to Belgium. Oh, where would she be twenty years from now? Where might any of us be? How would we be "living Jesus," as the Vis sisters say?

What a room of people! What an experience of faith and community and love and hope! What a way to be fed!

As I close this reflection out, I'm grateful for the sisters' presence at 16th and Fremont (and 17th and Girard) in North Minneapolis. I'm mindful of how lucky my child is to even sit in the same space with these women, their friends, and to have a mom and dad who find such sustenance in visiting them.

Perhaps Marguerite will be called to be a nun someday? Perhaps she'll follow suit in some way as her namesake, Visitation Sister: St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque? Or maybe, she'll find her way in some fashion as her parents, living Salesian spirituality in their own subtle and intentional manners in the lay world? Regardless, Maggie is blessed, as we all are, to be in any proximity to this sacred monastic space called The Visitation Monastery in North Minneapolis.

LIVE + JESUS!

Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde
Visitation Companion