In Memoriam Patricia A Rohrman

 

Patricia A Rohrman

In Memoriam

September 27, 1932 ~ July 31, 2024 

We come from love. We return to love. Love is all around.

This is the essence of what Jesus teaches his disciples at his Last Supper with them. He had just told them that he would be returning to his Father’s household of love – that place from which he came down to dwell among us as the full embodiment of the Father’s love. The disciples are upset. Peter protests, saying, “I will go wherever you go.” Yes, yes, says Jesus, all in good time, but now is not the time. Your day will come, but you have much more work to do. 

This is when he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” [ John 14:1-6] It’s as if he is speaking to us all right now. Having lost a vital, essential, and much-loved member of our community of God’s love does trouble our hearts. Trouble mixed with love, knowing, that as he promises his disciples, Jesus has come to take her home to his Father’s house to be reunited with her beloved Charles, Thomas, and Timothy for whom he had already prepared a special place for them all. 

We notice that although Jesus is the one who will soon suffer in Jerusalem, it is he that is comforting the disciples. That’s what he comes to do – to be the visible presence of God his Father, and an ambassador of his Father’s love for the world and everyone and everything therein. Jesus comes to assemble a community of love that is all around us at all time, day and night. At that same supper, he issues a new commandment: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” [John 13:34-35] 

Which is what brings us all here today. In our love for one another, and our love for Pat, we gather as his community of love to comfort one another, to share our troubled hearts with one another, to bear the grief, the joy, and the love we all share for Pat and for one another. Jesus reassures us that this is the Way, the Truth and the Life he calls us to live. Both Jesus and Pat are surely glad to see that here, this morning, the love for one another is overflowing, and comforting our troubled hearts. 

We also gather to remember and celebrate a life faithfully lived as an essential part of the love that is all around us at all times. As a volunteer in the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, the Community Action Agency, and the RSVP Program, Patricia A Rohrman was nominated twice for one of Harford’s Most Beautiful People Awards for her volunteer efforts. Here at historic Rock Spring Parish, she served on the Altar Guild, the Newsletter Committee, the Episcopal Church Women’s Group, and much much more. Tuesdays she worked here and at home with the Harford County Piecemakers, a quilting group that makes and distributes beautiful lap quilts to hospitals, nursing homes, and the sick, all free of charge. 

Pat had a deep love for Christ Church Rock Spring Parish. My first day in the office here, Pat was the first person to come in and charge me with the task of finding out just what had been going on here the previous ten years. There were questions that needed answers, and believe me, as she made her case, I hopped to it until we all could understand where things stood and move forward. Pat also had a special ministry to her priest: whether it was Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Birthday, the arrival of a new grandchild, on every special occasion a card arrived, on time, every year as long as I have been here with a personal message from Pat to me and our family. 

I am certain that everyone here has stories to tell about their special times with Pat, and there will be time in the parish hall after this service and The Committal in the cemetery to share those stories with one another. Pat Rohrman was and always will be a vital part of the love that surrounds us here at Christ Church on all sides, at all times. 

Just as we gather to love and comfort one another, and to remember and celebrate the life of Pat Rohrman, we also gather to affirm her faith in her Lord, Jesus Christ. As long as she was able, Pat was here on Sunday mornings to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Eucharist. She attended our parish suppers, our annual Lenten breakfast, worked at our rummage sales, but it was sitting in this historic church, singing, praying, and taking Holy Communion that tied her to Christ and to all of us. 

Her faith recognized that life is changed, not ended, and that when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us, as Jesus promises, a dwelling place eternal in the heavens of his Father’s household of love, mercy, and forgiveness. This is why we dress the church in white and gold for Easter, for Resurrection. We light the Paschal Candle that was lit the day she entered the church in Holy Baptism, and we light it again today as she enters her new resurrected life with the God who is Love. Whose love was embodied in Jesus, his Son, the morning star that knows no setting. Whose light forever shines in the darkness, dispelling all darkness, and all troubled hearts; a reminder that we will all, one day, return to that place of love from whence we all have come. Our true home. We come from love. We return to love. Love is all around. Amen.