All Saints, Dorval
Anne Irene Glen Lambert
March 9, 2024
Irene Lambert was a bright light. From the first time I met her in 2018 in the house on Sainte-Marie, to when I said the prayers for the dying at her bedside in the Pavillon Camille-Lefebvre, to be in her presence was to be in the presence of joy and peace.
The hymns at today’s service were chosen from among those left on Irene’s piano, but we had more possibilities than we could fit in the service. So instead of singing the musical setting of the Prayer of St. Francis, we prayed it aloud, together. The famous first line is, of course, “Make me an instrument of your peace,” and how very appropriate that that word features so prominently at the service for a woman whose very name – Irene – is the Greek for “peace”.
Peace is also the last word of the reading from Ecclesiastes, another beloved text that reminds us that there is a time for everything in its turn.
Irene had a long life, falling short of her century by only a year and a half, and any life of that length is not always going to be outwardly peaceful; she was, after all, a member of the rapidly shrinking generation who were adults during the Second World War.
But she always had peace within, an unshakable conviction of the goodness of God and her own belovedness. She had the steadfast companionship of her dear Wally, whose funeral we held in this very chapel two and a half years ago, and with whom she is now reunited before God. She had the love of her children, her extended family, friends and community. She had her music, the language of the divine. She had her love of the natural world – especially the birds – and the joy of interpreting it through art. She lived a life at peace with herself, God and the world: what the Bible calls “the peace that passes all understanding.”
And Irene did not keep that peace, that joy in life and that love for God and the world, to herself. She reached out and shared her gifts, in many cases committing to the same causes for well over half a century. She had her sixty-year medal from the Girl Guides of Canada (and I suspect she was actually involved for a lot longer than that!). She served on the Altar Guild and at the bazaars here, when this was the Parish of St. Andrew and St. Mark (and even before that, when it was simply St. Mark’s). She devoted many years to Meals on Wheels and to the Lachine General Hospital Auxiliary. And you always wanted to make sure you got a batch of her baked goods at any event where they were available!
Irene found peace in long walks around the neighbourhood – sometimes hand in hand with Wally, sometimes just walking to get where she needed to go (reducing her carbon footprint before anyone knew that that was a thing!). She found it out on the water in their boats. And she found it on her travels, to the UK and the Caribbean, getting a new perspective on the world from a different point of view.
The wellspring of this peace was, of course, God, whom Irene had been taught to love as a little girl and with whom she walked faithfully throughout her life. God was with her in birth and death, planting and harvest, mourning and laughter, words and silence.
And now Irene has reached the fulfillment of that peace, as she sees God face to face. She experiences perfect peace, perfect love, perfect joy, perfect rest: all the good things that she showed us on earth, through her reflection of God’s goodness, are now hers, completely and forever.
Because we are left behind, we mourn. Even 98 ½ years with Irene was not enough. Someone who radiated light and peace is gone from our mortal sight, and mourning is entirely appropriate.
Yet also, we rejoice, because the good work that God did in Irene is now made perfect; her peace has come to fruition, her larger life has begun, and will never end. As we will say in just a moment in the Commendation, in defiance of the Lenten prohibition on “the A-word,” “weeping over the grave we make our song: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
The peace of God passes all understanding, and it is what enables us to grieve those we love even as we give thanks that they have been raised by the God who conquered death on our behalf. It is indeed, as the Prayer of St. Francis assures us, that in dying we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
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