Homily: "I desire mercy": Mass of Healing and Remembrance for those who died by suicide

October 6, 2026

This homily was given and provided by Fr. Nivin Scaria, rector at St. Ambrose Cathedral and canonical administrator for Holy Family Catholic School, on September 21, 2026, during a Mass of Healing and Remembrance for those who died by suicide.

 “I desire mercy.”

As I was going through the readings for today, on this Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, these words of Jesus stood out to me: “I desire mercy.”

Those words seem especially appropriate as we gather today to remember and pray for those who have died by suicide, and to pray for their families and friends who continue to carry their absence.

Two years ago, on a cold January day, I received a call telling me that a young woman I knew had taken her own life. She was only 21 years old, a young mother with a seven-month-old baby, and she had been struggling with postpartum depression.

Her death shocked everyone, her family, her friends, and our community. I still remember the funeral. It was a bitterly cold day, and I remember seeing her little baby wrapped warmly and held in the grandmother’s arms. Looking at that child and realizing that the mother was gone was heartbreaking.

After the funeral, the family did not want to keep all the plants that had been sent as condolences, so I brought two of them here to the chapel. Even now, when I water those plants or take care of them, I remember her. I remember her smile. I remember her life. And I remember some of the struggles she carried.

There are others I have known who have died in the same way. Perhaps many of us here today know someone. And whenever death comes, it leaves a void. But an unexpected death, and particularly a death by suicide, can leave us with so many questions.

Why? What if I had noticed something?

What if I had called?

What if I had done something differently? Could I have prevented this?

And sometimes beneath all those questions is another painful question: Where are they now?

We may carry some of those questions for the rest of our lives. We may never have all the answers.

But today Jesus gives us something to hold onto.

“I desire mercy.”

Notice what happens in today’s Gospel. Jesus sees Matthew sitting at the customs post. Others looked at Matthew and saw a tax collector. They saw a sinner. They saw someone working for the occupying power. Some probably saw a man unworthy of God's love.

But Jesus saw Matthew. He saw the person.

And I think that is something very important for us to remember today.

God saw our loved ones completely. He saw what we saw, but he also saw what we could not see.

He saw every burden they carried. He saw every wound hidden within their hearts. He understood the struggles they could not explain and the pain they could not put into words.

We knew them and loved them. But God knew them even more completely, and God loved them even more deeply.

Jesus says something else in today's Gospel: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

He moves toward our brokenness. Some wounds are visible. Others are hidden deep within the mind and heart. Sometimes even the people closest to someone do not realize how much pain that person is carrying.

But there is no wound hidden from Christ.

There is no darkness into which Christ cannot enter.

There is no human heart that is beyond his mercy.

At every Mass, in the Eucharistic Prayer, we pray for the dead. in the Eucharistic Prayer for use in Masses for various needs the prayer for the death speaks so beautifully “all the dead, whose faith you alone have known.” I find those words especially consoling today: “whose faith you alone have known.”

Because we do not know everything that happened in the final moments of another person's life. We do not know everything that was happening deep within their heart. We do not know the fear, confusion, illness, suffering, or darkness they may have experienced.

But God knows. And so, we do not place them into our judgment. We place them into God's mercy.

We place those whom we love back into the hands of the Father, the Father who created them, who knew them, who walked with them through moments we knew nothing about, and who understands them more completely than we ever could.

And to the families who are here today: the manner in which your loved one died does not summarize the whole of his or her life.

Their life was so much more than its final painful chapter.

Remember their laughter. Remember their kindness. Remember the ordinary moments you shared. Remember the love they gave and the love you gave them.

And when we are flooded with questions remember also the words Jesus gives us today:

“I desire mercy.”

We may not have answers to every “why.”

But we have a Savior who is merciful.

We have a Divine Physician who draws near to the wounded.

We have a Father who knows what is hidden in every human heart.

And we have Jesus Christ, who died and rose again so that death would never have the final word.

Today, therefore, we entrust those who have died not to our questions, not to our fears, and certainly not to our judgment.

We entrust them to the mercy of God.

Jesus looked at Matthew and saw more than everyone else could see.

And God saw our loved ones in the same way.

He saw everything.

He knew everything.

And he loved them through it all.

May they now rest in the mercy of God. 

Amen