Funerals are always sad occasions, but today we find ourselves not only deeply saddened but also caught up in a whirl of contradictory and confusing emotions. Because of the sufferings Jerome knew in his all too short life, and because of the manner of his death, we find it hard to understand and to cope with our feelings.

Among other things, we have an unavoidable feeling of guilt. If only we had done more for Jerome, if only we had taken more time and trouble to help him and befriend him… But these “if only’s” lead nowhere, they are a dead end.
We did what we could, and we simply have to accept that neither the love and care which we and many others offered, nor the particular love of Jerome’s mother, nor all the efforts of modern medicine, nor the faith and the prayers of the Church, were able to free this young man from the prison in which he found himself trapped by the illness of his mind.

Not that we should identify Jerome with his illness. He knew happy times too, even in recent years. He was thoughtful, kind, and talented, he was amusing and he could be fun; and we loved him for all these things, for who he was. But at the same time we know that he was never able to develop all these sides of him and to grow into the lovely and successful human being he could have been.

In the midst of our pain and our shock, I would like to suggest that the Christian faith offers us a number of resources which may help us cope.
In the first place, it is very clear from the Bible that Jesus Christ was able to cure many people whose lives were blighted by mental conditions very like what Jerome had to endure. The power and the love of Jesus were able to release them from the same sort of prison that Jerome found himself trapped in.

And this same Jesus, who himself knew great sufferings and whose life was brought to an early end at about the same age as Jerome, and who then rose again into a new and eternal life, will now be able to raise Jerome into a new life, life in all its fullness, a quality of life which Jerome was scarcely able to taste here on earth.