1 John 3:1-2

Two verses from John's first letter, and between them the whole shape of Christian hope. The first states what is already true: "See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!" — and John immediately insists this is no honorific: and so we are. The deceased was not merely a member of a parish or a good neighbor; they were a child of God, made so at baptism by a love the world "doesn't know."

The second verse states what is not yet visible: "it is not yet revealed what we will be." John — the disciple who leaned on Jesus' chest, who stood at the cross, who outlived all the others — admits he does not know the details of the life to come. The funeral liturgy is honest in the same way; the Church does not pretend to describe heaven's furniture.

But between the already and the not-yet stands the one certainty: "when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is." The destiny of the children of God is the vision of God — what the tradition calls the beatific vision — and being transformed by seeing.

For mourners, the reading reframes the unanswerable questions. What is our loved one experiencing now? John answers: more than can be revealed, and better than can be imagined — likeness to Christ, face to face.