MOURNERS at the Requiem Mass for Caoilte Fitzsimon’s heard how the youngster “made this world a better place”.
The five-year-old Ardoyne girl passed away in the early hours of Sunday.
Caoilte was born with Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and spent the last few years of her short life campaigning alongside mum Fiona and dad Rab to raise awareness of the condition.
Wednesday’s funeral procession was a sea of purple and pink as mourners wore Caoilte’s favourite colours.
Speaking at Requiem Mass at St Therese church Somerton Road on Thursday, Father Paul Strain asked mourners to “think of the impact” her short life had had.
“Who can claim to have been on ITV or BBC or in the newspapers or their death noted on news sites or managed to get that number of people praying for her all her life?" he asked.
“All those people who knew of her and called in to the home these past few days to support Fiona and family or achieved through her parents’ campaign equal treatment for SMA children from the NHS or had people fast for her, or jump out of planes for her, or gone on sponsored walks for her, or got to have Brendan Rogers wheel her and have the Odyssey support her.
“She has brought joy, love, faith, sorrow, worry, concern, hope, happiness, heartbreak – the whole gamut of emotions, life to the full, and brought that out in her parents and family who devoted so much to her.”
He continued: “Caoilte is the child of yours – the child of God – and what she is to be in the future, we do not know. All we do know is that she shall be like Him for she shall see Him as He really is and all He really is, is love. What can we hope to achieve in life except to have made this world a better place for our having been in it? And Caoilte has made this world a better place. She has brought love and faith and spurred our hope.”
Following Requiem Mass, Caoilte was laid to rest in Carnmoney Cemetery.
