Br. Curtis Almquist

Preached at the Eucharist of the Resurrection in thanksgiving for the life and witness of Mary “Polly” Chatfield (1929–2025).

Isaiah 25:6-8
Psalm 84
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
John 11:17-26

All of what we have heard read from the scriptures Polly chose for her funeral. Polly also chose the hymns and the poetry. She planned this! Polly was always so forward thinking, moving into the future. And so we heard the prophet Isaiah speak of the end of time, when all will be well, where people will feast on a new and abundant life, “where death is swallowed up forever, and God will wipe away tears from all faces.” We need only look at a few stories in the news to be reminded of the endless multitudes of people who are now suffering in our own country and around the world: suffering from drought and famine and flood; from war and captivity; from invidious abuse and discrimination and injustice; from homelessness and hopelessness and grief.

For those of us who have agency, we have been given a mission in life to help create on earth this heavenly picture that the prophet Isaiah gives us about the end of times. In a few moments we will be invited to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us – what we call the Lord’s Prayer – where we express, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it will be in heaven.” We are the answer to that prayer, to help bring to earth what shall be in heaven.

Polly was such a beautiful witness to this, our calling in life, to live our lives with loving kindness and in dedicated service, both to people and to the planet, and with a capacious generosity. Our friend Polly gave such a powerful witness to this. Polly always opted for life, moving forward, and with such great inspiration to also help others to move forward. She was tenacious and unafraid to challenge the norms that held people back because of their poverty, their race, their religion, or their lack of education.

Many decades ago, our Brothers here in the monastery came to know Polly’s first husband, Michael St. Anthony Post, before we knew Polly. While an undergraduate at Harvard College, Michael served as an acolyte right here in this chapel, at this altar. In not many years hence, now married to Polly, he tragically had a heart attack from which he never recovered. Michael’s widow, Polly, was now the sole parent of five young children. She was in crisis. Here at the monastery, our own Father Alfred Pedersen assured Polly that we Brothers would help in every way possible. Michael’s funeral was here in this chapel in September of 1963.

Polly would marry Charles Wolcott Chatfield, another teacher, and now with their “blended” family, she was the mother of seven children between the ages of five and thirteen. Seven young children! And yet, even more children appeared. Polly literally reached out to so many, many other children whom she taught in school and whom she met along the way. She helped with 4-H clubs in rural Maine; she helped found an organization in Maine which almost-magically connected needy teenagers with needy elders; she helped in the sponsorship of orphans in a school in Tanzania; she advocated for a school in Boston and for monks on Memorial Drive, and for so much more . . .

On the cover of the leaflet you received for today’s service is a reproduction of an icon that hung in Polly’s apartment above her bed. This Greek icon which comes from Constantinople is traditionally called, “The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring.” The name “Mother of God” refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, pictured here as an infant in Mary’s arms. This is Jesus, whom the church remembers as God incarnate, that is, God, who was born a child so as to meet us, God’s children that we all are: a divine human-being to save lost children.

The icon remembers an event in the fifth century when a soldier, walking on a rural pathway, discovered a blind man dying of thirst. The soldier heard an ethereal voice, surely it was God’s voice, telling the soldier that a spring of water was in the nearby grove of trees. And there was something more. The mud that lined the spring the soldier was to use to anoint the blind man’s eyes. This provision was right at hand, both to quench the man’s thirst and to heal his blind eyes. The rest is history. The setting for this became Constantinople. The spring of water and the miraculous mud became a place of pilgrimage for quenching thirst and healing bodies down through the centuries. So the icon is named: “The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring.” Our beloved Polly was this living icon. Polly was “The Mother for God,” and to children of every age. We are all children of God, and Polly was a matriarch.

Her daughter, Barbara, tells of how Polly would read to her children before bedtime. One favorite book was Winnie the Pooh.[1] There’s a wonderful game named “Poohsticks.” You may remember the story. Poohsticks can be played on any bridge over running water; each child dropping a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner. Barbara says that she and her siblings would play Poohsticks when they were out for a walk with Polly, especially in the woods when they came across a stream with some kind of bridge. I’m just picturing Polly, with her radiant smile, cheering as the sticks floated out from under the bridge, each child a winner. I am certain that Polly even now has not stopped her cheering and advocacy.

Momentarily, we will hear from the altar words of assurance that in death, “life is changed, not ended.” In Polly’s own words, “This life and the next life are on speaking terms with each other.” We don’t know much about this eternal life ahead of us at our death. We do know that Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:3). I am certain that Polly, with her radiant smile, will be at Jesus’ side to help welcome us into the next life.

Blessed Polly St. Anthony Post Chatfield, whom we remember with such great thanksgiving.

[1] The story is first mentioned in The House of Pooh Corner a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A. A. Milne, first published in 1928.