June 2015 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
Sr. Cecile Reiley
Still With Us All These Years eulogy April 24, 2015
Breezy is not the right word. It is WINDY out there. This late April day feels more like winter than spring. But with the cool comes the feeling of clean, alive, invigorating. Such a day is a good one, I suppose, for Sister Cecile Reiley to be called home. Her mortal journey that has been such a struggle of late is mercifully over. Her choice not to have her leg amputated a couple of days ago, perhaps sped up the process and she was able to get back to her beloved Villa before passing on.
“If a seedling does not die as it is buried in the ground, it would not be able to grow and harvest into a vast field of wheat.”
I wonder about the depth and breadth of the fields of wheat Sister Ceil left behind. I wonder how many of us will think specifically of her as we stumble our way through the corroded fields of our lives. My dear sister pulled no punches when I’d go and see her. “Of course I’ll pray for you but you’d better get off your butt and keep busy!” (In looking for work or whatever). I don’t know how many times I heard that from her. But I also heard kindness and gentility; wisdom and wit. Sister Ceil ‘got it’ about as well as anyone I ever met. The mirthfulness and bemusement of the truly spiritual person, she had in spades. But it was also very apparent that her life and her love and thus her advice and counsel, were embedded in her connection with the Creator. Thus the amazingly seamless way she was able to touch anyone who came near her magic wonder. Her grasp of a world drifting further and further from the ideals she lived was amazing. Yet never did it overwhelm or stymie her. When you walked in her room it was not like going to confession, it was more like the anteroom of paradise.
Funny how things work out. My plans for this now Holy Friday were to go visit a friend in Crozier-Chester hospital and then shoot over the Blue Route and go over to the Villa. The friend, who’s been in and out of a lot of different recovery houses and rehabs over the last two years, got to meet Sister several times…and he got to love her a lot. That part of our visits was the best part. I didn’t have to tell him to specifically remember her and her graces and continued existence as he travels through the struggles of his addiction and the mammoth struggle to get by in the recovery system.
As it is Friday night, soon I’ll be heading over to make coffee for my AA home group. A couple of different folk spoke of prayer groups and send offs up at the Villa this morning and I wonder if I should have gone up there anyway. But I suspect that my latest, dutiful representative of the Hosts of Heaven would have preferred I hang out with a struggling friend. She always asked how he was doing. My call back found him already reading the Richard Rohr book I brought him.
My two best job projects bit the dust this day. My stars do not seem to be particularly well aligned lately. But Sister would be glad that I did make it to a chapel to do the meditation I failed to do this morning. Strange but as I wrote that sentence, that ridiculously warm, inviting and sparkling smile seeped into my consciousness.
I promise to keep busy, Sister … and to have faith that things will work out Thanks for your help now and forever…
James McGovern
Jim, a local writer, has published two books and several Op-Eds in the Inquirer and other local papers
He can be reached at "12stepsforall.com" or at batesius33@gmail.com
Jim McGovern,
Sally Davis, And Sr. Cecile Reiley