The kind of sorrow that had engulfed Liam and Britt Miller over recent weeks "empties our souls", said Father Dermod McCarthy in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral on New Year's Day.
"This kind of bereavement is stark, private, and exclusive," he said. Head of religious programmes at RTÉ, he was addressing an overflow congregation at the Requiem Mass for Jenny (28) and Katherine (22) Miller, only children of former RTÉ managing director Mr Liam Miller and his wife, Britt.
On December 21st the women were driving to be with their parents for Christmas in France when they were killed in a traffic accident.
They were cremated on December 23rd following a ceremony at the university chapel in Angers. Urns containing their remains were on the altar during Saturday's Mass.
Addressing Mr and Mrs Miller, Father McCarthy said: "We lean on the love of one another. Even though we may crowd around awkwardly, lost for words, stumbling over worn phrases, everybody in this church is here in support, wanting you to lean on them in your grief."
Former RTÉ managing director of television Mr Joe Mulholland read in French and English words for the girls' parents spoken by chaplain Madame Aline Mandon at the funeral on December 23rd.
Expressing profoundest compassion, she said, "they were our future and we have lost our future. They were part of us and we have lost ourselves . . . here we are alone, like orphans, our hearts greviously wounded by death. Our life left asking, why?"
Readings were by Ms Karen Fitzelle and Church of Ireland Canon Desmond Sinnamon, friends of the Miller family.
Mr Mark Elsey, who was due to become engaged to Jenny Miller later this month, read one of the Prayers of the Faithful.
At the end Mrs Miller read a Swedish prayer, Du Lilla Barn (The Little Baby), while Mr Miller said December 21st, the shortest day, was now their blackest day.
He did not believe they would ever again have a Christmas like they used to.
"We were lucky in our girls, our loving daughters," he said. It was "very difficult to explain the ache" at the loss of two such wonderful girls, so suddenly, in unexpected death.
"An enormous comfort" had been "the love and understanding of so many people," he said.