Having witnessed Fr Maliekal's struggle to explain me (a Salesian Brother, not as a would-be priest), I decided to speak something in that line and thank Fr Maliekal's mother for the same. This is what I spoke to those gathered for the funeral (in English; for if I were to have spoken in Malayalam, the dead would have resurrected and those living reached the gates of heaven instantly!):
We often think very highly of priests and religious, with a feeling that their 'vocation' is a very noble and a 'lofty' one. However, every vocation is a vocation to life, to love, to serve. As priests and religious we only choose one form of doing that. But every path of life also offers this. Greatness lays not in becoming a priest or brother or sister, but in living one's life to the full. And today we thank this mother who lays here before us for exactly this: that she not only lived her life to the full but helped her children too, five of whom are present here with us, to identify and equip them with the necessary skills to live their life to the full too. For this we thank you Mummy!
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