The opening lines of today’s gospel present us with the picture of Mary Magdalene, standing outside the empty tomb in which she had expected to find the dead body of Jesus. She is weeping, overcome by the horrors of the death of Jesus and now by the distressing thought that someone has come and stolen the body of her Lord.

Many people throughout the world, and perhaps many here in the Cathedral today, are also weeping, openly or in their hearts, as we all seek to come to terms with the desperately sad news of the death of Pope Francis.

In one sense his death in the Vatican, which took place around 1.30pm in the afternoon here in Perth, was not unexpected. We had been told that he came very close to death twice during his recent time in hospital, and I think we all knew, in our heart of hearts, that with his return to his home in the Vatican we were witnessing the beginning of the last chapter of his life.

But when we saw footage of his appearance on the balcony overlooking Saint Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday morning, heard his simple message to the crowds - Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter - and then saw him in the Pope mobile moving through the crowds offering his blessing, and even at one stage gently lifting up a baby in a gesture which was so typical of him, we dared to hope that perhaps he had turned the corner and that he would continue to lead the Church into the future.

It was with a sense of shock, then, that the news came through yesterday afternoon that the Holy Father Pope Francis had died. And so, like Mary Magdalene, we mourn and we weep.

It is in the midst of Mary’s sorrow and distress that the risen Lord comes to her. At first, she cannot recognise Him. In this, too, we have something in common with her, for we too often fail to recognise the presence of the Lord among us. How often was this the message which Pope Francis strived so hard to communicate to us? The Lord is very close to us, perhaps no more so than we feel distant from Him or have even allowed Him to slip out of our consciousness completely. He is close to us in our joys and in our sorrows, in our successes and in our failures, and just as He did with Mary, so with us he calls us by name. “You did not choose me,” he once told His disciples,  “No, I chose you”. This is certainly true of anyone who, in whatever way, belongs to the family of the Christian Church. The Lord has looked on us with love, has chosen us to be His own in a particular way, and now thirsts for our response.

Yesterday, while many of us were undoubtedly enjoying a relaxed lunch here in Perth after the busyness of Easter, the Lord once again called and chose Francis. He came to him, He called him by name as He had once called Mary by name, and we can be confident in Francis‘s response; it was in fact the response which has characterised his whole life: Here I am, Lord, ready to do your will.

It is not hard to know the will of God: Jesus himself summed it up as love of God with our whole heart and soul and love of others as we love ourselves. Pope Francis has given us a remarkable example of what this two-fold commandment looks like in practice: it looks like feeding the hungry; it looks like giving new sight to the blind; it looks like setting the prisoners free. Hunger, blindness, and lack of freedom: all these can be physical and we are called to respond in any way we can.

But there is also, and perhaps more destructively, a spiritual hunger, a spiritual blindness, and a spiritual imprisonment and these too are realities which should move us with compassion, as they moved Jesus with compassion, and lead us to concrete action as they led Jesus to concrete action.

This is perhaps the quality of Pope Francis which stands out so clearly: that the beautiful words he so often spoke were matched by practical and concrete action. We see this in the Pope’s decision just a few days ago, to visit the prisoners in one of Rome’s prisons and to assure them of his closeness to them and their families, even though he was no longer able to get down on his hands and knees to wash their feet.

And we see it, too, in his determination to be with his people on Easter Sunday morning in Saint Peter’s Square.

When Mary Magdalene realised that it was Jesus standing before her, she was overcome with joy and threw herself down, clasping Him by his feet. It was a gesture of love and speaks powerfully of the kind of relationship the Lord Jesus seeks to have with each one of us. He is not a remote figure from the past, someone perhaps to be admired from a distance. He wants to be our brother, He wants to be our friend, and He wants to accompany us as we journey through life as He accompanied the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection. This closeness to others has been a defining characteristic of the life and ministry of Pope Francis. It is what had made him so loved and admired by so many people, of all faiths and none. And this love for the Pope often manifested itself in the desire of people to cling to the Pope, much as Mary Magdalene wanted to cling to Jesus. We can imagine Jesus gently prising Mary’s hands away from His feet. He does not need her to cling to Him: He needs her to show her love for Him by sharing the good news of His resurrection with His disciples. And so Mary, probably reluctantly, has to let go.

We too now have to let go of Pope Francis, although we will carry his memory in our hearts for a long time. Like the Lord he served so faithfully Francis, too, would want us to and share the good news of Jesus risen, to anyone who will listen. But, in keeping with one of the legends about Saint Francis, whose name the Pope adopted when he was elected, our sharing of the good news is to be done first and foremost by the quality of our lives and of our practical care, and only after that by our words. Then will the dream of Pope Francis for the Church come true: we will be a community which heals people’s wounds and warms people’s hearts.

Eternal rest give to him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.