Homily – Fr. Peter Schmidt's Funeral

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: "Father, those whom you gave me are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me…

Br. Daniel told me that soon after Peter died, while he was still in his room,before the funeral home arrived, a dove alighted on his window, and remained there for quite some time, looking in at Peter. 

As we know the dove is a traditional symbol of the Holy Spirit. This appearance was particularly touching and fitting because the Holy Spirit was the object of special devotion to Fr. Peter and deeply linked to his monastic vocation. When he was sent off to the university by the monastery for further studies, his special area of study was the role of the Holy Spirit in the writings of William of St. Thierry, and this interest stayed with him throughout his monastic life. For it is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that the mysteries of Christ are opened to us, and of the Father, our origin and goal, who, in his utterly gratuitous love brought us into being in the first place. So conversations with Peter about the Holy Spirit tended to turn into discussions of the Trinity.

The Trinity is the mystery of divine persons in relation; a mystery that would be unknown to us except that it has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ; and what unites these Persons is love; divine, immutable but infinitely dynamic, overflowing, superabundant, gratuitous and inexhaustible love. It is this love that Fr. Peter as a young man had discovered, or rather was revealed to him, that captured his heart, his whole being. Fr. Peter wanted to know this love, to partake of it, be united to it, be transformed into it, and share what he had found with the rest of the world, with all those whom he met. It was in pursuit of this love, love which he found  incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ, that so drew him to itself that he gladly gave up all things for his sake and consecrated himself to him as a Cistercian monk. 

Peter not only loved God but also people. He was fascinated by them. As a confessor and spiritual director, he was known to be an attentive listener, accepting and nonjudgmental, and a source of good counsel.

Unfortunately, I was unable to be here when Fr. Peter received the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick in his room at the infirmary, with all the brothers gathered round him. But several have mentioned how thin and wasted away his body had become, how it was hard to believe that such frailty could still be clinging to life, and how Peter who would often remark on the constant pain that afflicted him throughout his body, which made every activity difficult, from walking to sleeping, now radiated peace,  that was apparent not only in his face but in his bodily movements and gestures as well. 

This can only be the work of the Holy Spirit, who had captured his heart in his youth, and was now joined with his spirit in such a way that it took him over, body and spirit, so that the pains he suffered, the sorrows and trials that had plagued him through the years, the decades, of chronic illness, were for a moment transcended in the gracious gift of the sacrament and in the expression of fraternal love in the gathering of the brothers. 

Through the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son were calling Peter to themselves, to enter eternally into the mystery of their fellowship of perfect love, where there is no longer sorrow or pain. 

This experience recalled to me the verse from the Song of Songs we hear so often in the liturgy: “My lover speaks and says to me, ‘Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.’

In death, all trials, sorrows and pain are over and gone. Now, the Lord says, you will arise and come to me and you will be mine and I will be yours, forever. As the Song says a few verses later: “My lover belongs to me and I to him.” 

Returning to the image of the dove looking in the window at Peter:

Immediately following the verse just quoted, the lover calls his beloved his dove, “My dove in the clefts of the rock,* / in the secret recesses of the cliff, / Let me see your face, / let me hear your voice, / For your voice is sweet, / and your face is lovely.”

For St. Bernard the dove’s eyes symbolize the single-hearted gaze of contemplative love. The dove on the window would therefore represent the Spirit of the Lord, who in his divine simplicity, gazes upon Peter in undivided love. On the other hand, even during his lifetime, the same Holy Spirit that indwelt Peter, that enabled him to cry out, “Abba”, Father, himself gazed upon the Lord with the same undivided love. So that in a mutual exchange of divine love, when the Lord gazes upon Peter he sees the dove, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and his undivided love. 

In the purity of this divine love that indwells him, Peter is made beautiful to the Lord. He becomes the Lord’s dove, and the Lord’s goal is to transform him so completely that Peter’s love is made one with the Spirit’s love and therefore one with the Lord’s love so that they become one spirit. So that in this unity, Peter’s face may be always turned towards the Lord and never turn away again, never again be drawn away toward other loves, which can only be false loves. 

Over the course of Peter’s entire life, the Lord has been calling out to him “Let me see your face”, that is, let me have your undivided love. “let me hear your voice” that is, may your every word be praise, “For your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.” More importantly, the Lord wanted to see Peter’s face because when the face of each is locked in one another’s gaze, the Lord then has Peter’s attention, so that he can reveal himself and the Father to him. So that he can show Peter what true love is, true life and true freedom, and give them to him.

The “clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cliff” for St. Bernard symbolize the wounds of Christ, including his open side, in which the Lord can offer the soul refuge in his mysteries, in the place from which the healing and life giving powers of water and blood, baptism and the Eucharist, flowed out. 

The soul resides there, for St. Bernard, when it gazes on the wounds of Christ. In this contemplative gaze the soul becomes rooted in charity and strengthened against temptation. But this healing gaze also applies to physical ailments, such as those from which Peter suffered for so long. As St. Bernard says, “the kindly captain wants the faithful soldier to lift up his face to his own wounds, so as to strengthen his purpose, and by his own example to give him greater courage to endure.” 

“For while gazing on the Lord’s wounds he will indeed not feel his own”, says St. Bernard. “From the rock therefore comes the courage of the martyr, from it obviously the power to drink the Lord’s cup.” 

Peter was not always successful at maintaining this gaze, but the Lord was well aware of his weaknesses, and as with Peter, so with us, what the Lord demands is our sincere whole-hearted attempt, he will take care of the rest. 

Perhaps the best way for us to honor Peter lies in this: in prayer, to let our face meet the gaze of the Lord’s face, so that he may make us each individually and as his body, one spirit with him.