Something to share

Things are going well at the Weier house. After recovering from a week of the kids having the flu, we are all happy to see the sun shining and the outside temp finally hitting the 40s.

Last weekend was the Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) retreat at St. Mary's for the men in our parish. My dad was on the presenting team and followed in Chris' footsteps as the lay director. It turned out to be a much harder weekend to get through than I anticipated. Not because my dad was not here to help me with the kids, but because Chris should have been there to help his fellow CRHP brothers with the retreat. Its funny how things I don't think are going to bother me really do and stuff that I would expect to break me down don't hurt at all.

Chris loved being involved with CRHP and liked finding anyway to help run the weekends, especially if it involved cooking for the men. He knew one way to draw them in was through their stomachs and he made sure that at least one dinner over the weekend involved him grilling a "cro-magnon meal" as he put it. Chris was so transformed by his CRHP experience in April of 2008 that he followed up a year later in April of 2009 by attending a Cursillo retreat at our Diocese. When he returned from Cursillo, I asked him how it compared to his CRHP experience. He told me that CRHP was like being slapped upside the head with a 2x4 and is what renewed his relationship with Christ after many years of being a fair weathered Catholic. But that Cursillo is what gave him the tools and the inspiration to try to help other men like him. He was not into preaching per se, but really just wanted to share his story and hope somehow it could help others that might be struggling with some of the same stuff he was. But then he died one month later and never had the chance to follow through with his new "calling" if you will. And that is why I had to give the eulogy at his funeral. To share his story and tell others that they might want to consider living life differently as he had recently learned.

And so with that, I thought I would finally get around to sharing his eulogy here on my blog. For Chris, for Christ and for anyone else out there who might be looking for a different way to get through some of the daily struggles we all live with. Like I mentioned in a previous post, "take what you like and leave the rest..." God bless, Betsy

Christopher Matthew Weier

1972-2009

Loving husband, devoted father, beloved son, influential brother, fun uncle, trusted colleague, good friend. The list could go on and on of all the amazing roles my husband, Chris, filled for us. And I promise you, Chris, that I will spend the rest of my life sharing memories of you in all of these roles with Matthew, Megan and Hannah so that they NEVER forget Daddy. But just for today, I would like to share with you, a role that Chris was just beginning to excel in. That is the role of disciple of Christ. It was just over 13 months ago on Chris’ 36th birthday that he came into this church to spend some time with other men from the parish at a Christ Renews His Parish weekend. That weekend changed Chris’ life forever. To quote Chris from an email he sent to his lay director shortly thereafter:

“It is hard to put into words my thoughts and feelings of this past weekend, but it was truly a wonderful and emotional experience for me. It helped me see that there are others who share the same struggles and issues that I have to work through, and that we don’t need to face them alone. I think that the one thing this past weekend helped me with was to fill a void I had in my life – a lack of a connection with God that truly held personal meaning to me. Another thing I struggled with for a long time was that I did not think all of our past transgressions could really be forgiven, which I carried for a long time and which probably prevented me from being able to truly connect with our Lord. Most importantly, I came to realize that God has been with me my whole life, guiding me on my journey, and calling out to me. It just took the CRHP weekend to make me realize the power of God’s grace and to finally answer His call.”

After his weekend, and in true Chris fashion, he jumped right in and joined several other ministries in the church – he became lay director for the next CRHP weekend, joined Knights of Columbus, joined Deacon Lou’s bible study, attended a Cursillo retreat, and worked on the St. Mary job ministry. I seriously used to wonder if he was going to leave me to become a priest! We enjoyed attending mass together as a family and celebrating in the other sacraments as much as possible. We prayed together at home with our children, read the Bible together, went to Eucharistic Adoration, enjoyed listening to our favorite Christian rock music and had many conversations about the importance of Christ in our life. All of this was written in a letter that Chris recently gave me that I want to share with you:

Dear Betsy,
I just wanted to send a quick note, mostly to thank you for encouraging me to join you on this faith journey, as it has been an amazing experience to do together. It has been wonderful to be able to share with each other, really in a way that we never were able to do before, and part of it had been my inability to really express my feelings, not so much just with you, but really not at all. It has been hard for me to do that in the past, and I want to thank you for being patient with me through all that time until it finally clicked for me on my Christ Renews His Parish weekend. It has definitely been a very positive thing for us and our family, and I can only say that I love you now more than ever before. Thank you and thank God!
I love you very much, Chris.

On behalf of the entire Weier-Zeller family, I would like to say that we are beyond overwhelmed by the love and support received from around the country at the news of Chris’ passing. Several times this week I have been asked “what do you need?” “What can we do to help you?” “How can we honor Chris’ life?” I stand here today and can honestly say without a doubt in my mind, that the greatest gift you can give back to Chris is to live your life in Christ just like he was doing. If you can do that for me, Chris and I both promise you that everything is going to be okay.