The Time Is Short

Don was only in his early 40’s when he experienced a brush with death that would change his life forever.

When summer had ended, Don noticed himself feeling more fatigued and run down than usual. He barely had energy to get through the day at work. At first he chalked it up to getting older and tried to fight his way through it. However, when one morning he could not get himself out of bed, he knew that something more was going on.

His doctor sent him to have some blood work done as part of a total physical examination. When the results came back, the doctor called him and told him to go immediately to the emergency department. The tests revealed that he had contracted a rare virus that is usually transmitted by a mosquito bite. Within just two days he was in a coma and close to kidney failure.

Luckily, a specialist was contacted in time to help reverse the effects of the virus and bring Don out of the coma. However, it rattled him to learn how close to death he was. He spent his life always thinking he had plenty of time to realize all his hopes and dreams for the future. He took it for granted that he would live many more years. Now it became clear to him that the future is not promised to us and that the present is a gift to be treasured and taken advantage of.

Feeling that he has been given a second chance, Don tries to seize each day and relish every opportunity as a special blessing. He makes the time to spend with his family and plans more vacation time than he had allowed himself before. The petty problems that used to occupy his mind and fill him with anxiety no longer bother him. He lives with a fresh perspective on the beauty of creation and the gift his existence is.

Most especially, Don’s experience rekindled his faith and his relationship with God. The experience of his mortality showed him just how unprepared he was to meet his Creator. The words of today’s gospel became very real to him: “So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” After he awoke from his coma, he asked to see a priest so that he could confess his sins. It had been so long that he could not even remember the prayers, but he knew he could not put it off any longer. He knew that the first step he needed to take to reform his life was to get right with God.

Since then, Don has been attending Mass and praying daily. He looked for ways to get involved in his parish and share his story especially with young people. Knowing the joy and peace that comes with a deep, personal relationship with God, he wonders why he ever waited so long to turn to the Lord and why it took something as drastic as a life-threatening illness to wake him up. Most especially, he wants others to learn from his experience not to take their lives for granted but to savor every moment as a gift from God.

Don’s experience can resonate with each one of us. How many of us have been missing out on all that life has to offer us because we have been taking it all for granted? How many of us have been putting off deepening our relationship with the Lord because we think we have plenty of time? How many of us have failed to grasp the grace in every moment of our existence because we have been too preoccupied with things that do not matter?

In today’s second reading, Saint Paul urges us to snap out of it and wake up to all that God is offering us - “You know the time; it is the hour now for you to wake from sleep.” Tomorrow is not promised to us. We do not know how much time we have. Today is the day to make a decision to live for our Lord. We cannot put it off any longer.

At this Mass we celebrate the First Sunday of Advent. It marks the beginning of our four week preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ birth on Christmas day. As the days grow shorter and the night gets darker, it is a time for us to reflect on the shortness of our existence. None of us is adding any days to his or her life. We are coming closer to the day when we will stand before our Creator and give an account of how we used the time He allotted for us. These weeks offer us the opportunity to examine our conscience, to see where we need to make a change and to commit ourselves to seeking God’s forgiveness and the grace to make amends. Let us seize this opportunity! For some of us, this could possibly be our last Christmas. Let us no longer take for granted God’s gifts including our families and loved ones and put our energies toward the things that really matter.

If we do make those changes, I suspect that we will have the same reaction Don did and wonder why we waited so long to finally enjoy all the gifts that God has given us.

God created each of us for a purpose - to know, love and serve Him in this life and to praise Him forever in the life to come. He has given us a certain span of days, the number of which is only known to Him. Let us live each day for His glory taking joy in all His gifts. Let us stop taking for granted all we have and start really enjoying what He has given us. And let us prepare ourselves by confessing our sins, amending our lives and seeking our Lord in prayer. Then, this Christmas, Christ can be born in our hearts once again.

Keeping Death In Mind

When flying back from his apostolic trips around the world, Pope Francis has made it a custom to speak with journalists on the plane. On one flight, a reporter asked him where he found the energy at his age to keep up with such a hectic schedule. The Holy Father replied that he knew his time was short and that there was still much he needed to do. He explained that keeping in mind how little time he had left on earth energized him through all the appearances, speeches and ceremonies that make up his schedule.

It is natural for a man in his 70’s, like the Holy Father, to be thinking about the end of his life. But, the truth is that none of us knows how long our lives will be. What Jesus says in today’s gospel about the end of the world could also be said about the end of our earthly lives: “...of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” For some of us, our lives will be much longer than we imagine. Others of us would be shocked to know how little time we have left.

As Christians, it is important for us to keep death in mind. It reminds us that we are not meant for this world alone but for eternal life in heaven. Therefore, we set our hearts not on the things of this world but on the realities which are eternal. As Jesus tells us in today’s gospel, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Our short life on earth is a preparation for an everlasting life of joy with our Lord. As people of faith, therefore, we do not look on our imminent death with fear or loathing but with hope. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs us: “The Christian who unites his own death to that of Jesus views it as a step towards him and an entrance into everlasting life.” (1020)

Inspired, then, by the hope of everlasting life that Jesus won for us by His death and resurrection and by the words He speaks to us in the gospel, let us take this opportunity to reflect on two of the realities that await us after death - judgement and Purgatory.

The first reality after death is judgement. Each of us, at the moment of our death, will stand before the judgement seat of Christ to give an account of our lives. Every choice we have made, the intentions of our hearts and the desires that drove us will lay bare before ourselves and our Creator. There will be no time to make excuses or to try to justify what we have done or have failed to do. We will have no choice but to stand under the light of truth. It is an ominous thought. The fact is that very few of us will have enough good deeds to overshadow the selfish and hurtful choices we have made. Our only hope will be to trust in our Heavenly Father’s mercy. He is more just and loving than any human judge could be. We can trust Him to understand and forgive just as long as we have the humility to see ourselves as we really are.

During our lives, then, we should always bear in mind that we will one day stand before Jesus to give an account of our use of the gifts He has given us. Whenever we weigh a decision we should ask ourselves how we would explain our choice to Jesus. Most especially, we should make use of the Sacrament of Confession as frequently as possible. Admitting our sinfulness and weakness and accepting God’s mercy and forgiveness is a way of settling out of court rather than facing the full sentence. When we confess our sins, God promises not to hold them against us. Also, through this powerful sacrament, we receive the power to avoid temptation in the future and the wisdom to make good choices. If we make it a habit of examining our consciences regularly and confessing our sins frequently, then we will stand before the judgement seat of Christ with that much more peace and confidence.

If we die without serious sin on our conscience, we can be assured of reaching Heaven. However, we may still have some inclination toward sin in our soul. We may still have desires in our heart which make us more susceptible to temptation. In that case, we will require one more act of mercy on God’s behalf before we can enter the perfect life of Heaven. That last act of mercy we call - “Purgatory”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” (1030)

The simplest way to put it is - We will all be perfect in Heaven. However, few of us will be perfect when we die. Purgatory is the place where we are made perfect before entering the bliss of Heaven.

The Church has always believed that we can assist the souls in Purgatory through our prayers, our sacrifices and by offering Masses for their eternal rest. This is a beautiful act of mercy we can perform for those who have gone before us. It unites us to them through love and gives us the hope that they will assist us with their prayers once they have reached Paradise. Everyday, we should make it a point to say a prayer for our loved ones who have died and also for those who have no one to pray for them. We should also make a point of teaching our children about this pious practice so that they will pray for us after we have passed away.

As Christians, we keep the reality of our death ever in mind because we look forward in hope to the everlasting life of Heaven. That does not mean that we do not enjoy our lives on earth. Every day is a gift from God. We should thank Him for it and use it to draw closer to Him. God does not want us to live in fear but to trust in His goodness, love and mercy. If we do so, then we can feel confident when we stand before Him because we will not be relying on our own goodness but on His.

Never Forgotten

Laura was the housekeeper in the rectory of a busy parish with two priests, a school and convent.

After Mass every morning, one of the sisters, Sr. Joseph Mary, would go to the rectory to talk to Laura. Since she had long since retired from teaching, she was in no rush to get back to the convent. However, Laura was anxious to get back to her work in the rectory. As Sister talked on and on, she would try to find some polite way to end the conversation so that she would not fall behind in her chores.

One Friday evening, Laura was in the grocery store and noticed Sr. Joseph Mary out of the corner of her eye. With her daughter waiting for her in the car, she did not want to bump into Sister and get caught in a conversation that could last well over a  half an hour. So she did her best to try to avoid her.

However, Sr. Joseph Mary did notice her. As soon as she did, she ran up the aisle to her saying, “Laura, Laura, I’m so glad I saw you! I am going home to my Lord! I am going to see Jesus!”

Puzzled by her words, Laura asked her what she meant. Sister explained that she had been diagnosed with cancer. It was a particularly aggressive kind and it had already spread to several of her organs. The doctor told her that she probably only had weeks to live.

That was the last time Laura saw Sr. Joseph Mary. Within two weeks, she passed away.

Most people when receiving a diagnosis of cancer and a prognosis of only a few weeks to live would panic. They would be angry and ask God why. They would bargain with God assuring Him that they would go to Church more if only He would heal them. They would be overcome with fear at the pain they would be suffering. But not this holy sister. She approached death with total confidence in our Lord. She was even eager to die knowing that she would shortly be resting in the hand of God.

Our Christian faith gives us a new perspective on death. It is not an end, it is a new beginning. Like the seed buried in the ground that becomes a flower or like a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon that becomes a butterfly, death transforms us from mortal human beings to sons and daughters of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven. Once we have passed through death into heaven, suffering can no longer touch us.

We have this confidence because Jesus died on the cross for us. He accepted death with obedience and love and, in so doing, won for us the hope of everlasting life. Through baptism, we join ourselves to Jesus’ death, we “die with Christ” and so are given the promise of eternal life with Him in heaven. Every day, we die to ourselves by carrying the cross that God has chosen for us. If every day, with the help of God’s grace, we seek to do His will, then we too will approach our own death with acceptance, serenity and even joy.

Sr. Joseph Mary, in accepting the news of her death with such joy, shows us how free she really was. She was free from the fear of pain. Though she knew her illness would cause her much suffering, she was willing to endure it by joining it to the suffering of Christ. Her life had been fully of many close relationships but she was willing to say goodbye to her friends and family to be joined with Jesus in the company of the saints. Her life was totally focused on serving God, so she died with no regrets about what she may have missed out on in life. There were no earthly attachments holding her down, so she could open her arms to welcome the death that would unite her with her Lord forever.

Most people who are faced with the imminence of their death are not as blessed as Sr Joseph Mary. They are still holding onto regrets, resentments and sinful habits. They do not have the freedom to welcome death because they never really lived fully. We should always keep in our prayers those who are dying, that they can do so with peace and courage. We should also pray for their families who are struggling to support them while they cope with their own loss.

We should also keep in our prayers those who have already died and were still burdened with regrets, resentments or selfish attitudes. Jesus made it clear that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven with such blemishes on their conscience. However, God grants one more act of mercy for them. He offers them the chance to be purified of those earthly attachments, to be cleansed, so that they can freely embrace all the joys of heaven. We call that act of mercy, Purgatory. It is the state of the soul between physical death and entering the glory of heaven. We assist such souls with our prayers that they can let go of everything that is weighing them down and preventing them from rising up to the place God has prepared for them in Heaven.

Every year on this day, we gather as believers to reflect on the mystery of death and to pray for those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. It is an act of mercy for us to offer up Masses, sacrifices and prayers for our loved ones who are preparing themselves to enter the glory of Heaven. In particular, we should make an effort to pray for those souls who are forgotten and have no one to pray for them. If we do so, then we can be assured that they will also pray for us. Through their prayers and through the example of holy people like Sr Joseph Mary, we too can come to embrace the reality of death not with anxiety and fear but with peace and joy knowing that we will be united to our Lord and Savior forever.

Faith, Hope and Love in the Face of Death

We gather here today out of love.

Men and women who have been a part of our lives - family members and friends - are no longer with us. However, they are never far from our thoughts. We remember them this day.

Love brings us here. Those we have lost were the ones who nurtured us, comforted us and taught us how to live. Though they no longer live among us, we still hear their voices ringing in our ears. Our thoughts are filled with the lessons they taught us. Our hearts are still warmed by the love they showed us. Our souls are still nourished by their example of goodness, kindness and gentleness.

Love draws us here to pray. For some of us, our grief is still fresh. We may have lost our loved one in just the past year or few months. For others of us, we have learned to cope with the loss of our loved ones over many years. However, for all of us, love bids us to remember them and to thank God for them.

Not only our thoughts go up to them but our prayers as well that God will forgive their sins and welcome them into their everlasting reward.

We gather here today not only out of love, then, but out of faith.

We are a people who believe that death does not have the last word on life or on love. We are a people who rest assured that Jesus Christ by offering His life on the cross has destroyed death forever. Spurred on by this faith, we gather to proclaim the truth of His resurrection victory in the face of our grief.

Our faith teaches us that God does not grant life to take it away again. Rather, death is a passage to an everlasting life awaiting us in heaven where there will be no more suffering and no more tears. The way to that new life was opened to us by Jesus’ death on the cross. Through His blood we have the forgiveness of our sins. By His teaching, He has shown us how we are to live in this world with our hearts fixed on the things of Heaven. By the gift of the Holy Spirit we received in baptism, we have the power to live according to His commandments so that, when we are called to leave this world, we will be ready to enter the glory of Heaven.

That faith brings us here today confident that, while we mourn those we have loved and lost, it is possible for us to one day be reunited with them in Heaven.  

We gather here today, then, not only out of love, not only out of faith but also out of hope.

Our hearts assure us that we have not lost our loved ones forever. We hope that they are even now on their journey to an everlasting homeland with God in Heaven. Trusting in our Heavenly Father’s faithfulness, we pray that they are being cleansed of their human weakness, purged of their sinful inclinations and made ready to step into God’s unapproachable light. And we hope to one day see them again.

That hope brings us here, the hope that they continue to live on. With our hearts fixed on that blessed assurance, we keep our own hearts pure. Entrusting our own future to God’s goodness, we live in joyful expectation of the eternal life to come. We gather here today, then, not only in tears but with rejoicing that God will one day wipe every tear away, that the suffering of the present will be overcome by the joy of the future and that death will no longer threaten to separate us from those we love.

We gather here with faith, hope and love. These three gifts were planted in our hearts at baptism when our Heavenly Father first called us to be members of His family and offered us the inheritance of everlasting life in Heaven. These three gifts sustain us as we face the difficulties of life. And no difficulty is greater than that of death. But our Savior, Jesus Christ, has conquered death. In His name we pray that our loved ones finally enter into their heavenly homeland, that they pray for us as we struggle here on earth to do our God’s will and that we one day join them to praise God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with the angels and saints forever.

Memorial Day 2011

Some of the holiest men who ever lived and some of the Church's greatest saints were soldiers.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola who founded the Jesuit order served many years as a soldier in Spain. Even Saint Francis who is best known for his love of nature and animals served for a short time in the army of his native land.

At every Mass, before communion, we repeat the words which a Roman soldier once spoke to Jesus: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed." Jesus said of this soldier that he had never met anyone with such great faith.

Those of us who have been blessed to know soldiers or been soldiers ourselves can understand how they can be such holy men. They are dedicated to serving others. They are willing to set aside their own plans for the future to protect the freedoms of their country. They have a strong sense of duty toward the weak and vulnerable. They come face-to-face with all types of horrors and yet continue to believe that the world is good. But most importantly, like Jesus, they are willing to lay down their lives for their sisters and brothers.

Many of those who have given their lives for our country are just such men and women.

Many families in our country gather under the most tragic of circumstances today. They commemorate young lives that have ended. A conflict on the other side of the globe has touched many of us and robbed us of women and men who had so much to give. They gave their all to serve and protect us. We set aside one day to celebrate their life, to honor their service and to grieve their death.

Many will gather in churches to add an even deeper meaning to this day. They will invoke the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. They will recall the day when the soldiers they have lost were baptized and put on the armor of Christ. They will remember that there is a greater purpose to our lives than that which this world can offer. During this life, we are merely passing through. Our real homeland is in heaven. It is there that the meaning of our lives is revealed. It is there that we receive the reward for doing battle with evil. It is there that all suffering will finally cease and every tear will be wiped away. By that hope in the ultimate, all-encompassing and definitive victory of Jesus, we find the courage to face every sort of evil, but especially the great evil called "Death".

Those who have known and loved soldiers have endured a lot. While they were away, they endured the pain of separation. They feared for their loved ones every day and begged God to keep them safe. Now they bear a grief that is beyond words. The family and friends of soldiers have also had to sacrifice for their country. The stories of the families of fallen soldiers are not frequently told. We do not raise monuments to the wives, children, fathers or mothers of our heroes. But it is their courage that made those sacrifices and in turn our freedom possible.

We take a day to remember those whose service to their country has now ended. They are at rest receiving the reward of their labors. We must continue to live and carry their memory with a mixture of grief and pride. It is our faith above all else which gives us the strength and the courage to bear grief. Jesus knew what it was to die young for a cause he believed in - our salvation. He knew what it meant to lay down his life for others. No one has ever done it with as much love and courage as Jesus did. More than anyone else, he knows the suffering which so may in our country are unable to put into words. And he is at their side helping them to shoulder it.

Also by our side is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She witnessed her own son's cruel death at the hands of evil men. She is praying for those who has lost loved ones to war. They can draw comfort from her motherly care.

We will never know during this life why the world is full of so much evil, why there is so much hate, and why there is so much conflict and war. But the death of so many young people, as sad and tragic as it is, reminds us of how much good still is left in this world. It is a world worth fighting and dying for. That men, women and families throughout our country are willing to give of themselves to make the lives of others better is a source of great hope for all of us. We take this day to proclaim that it does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

So many families in our country have had to deal with tremendous loss. Today we show them that they are not alone. We need to lean on one another at times of conflict and war. And we need to pray even if it means shaking our fists at God and asking "Why?!" And we need to hope. There will come a day when all this bloodshed will be put to an end. Everything will be made right again, and we will be reunited with all those we have lost. It is the promise God made to each of us at our baptism. It is the victory Jesus guaranteed for us by giving his own life on Mount Calvary. And it is to that undying hope which we commend the souls of our fighting men and women until we see them again.

Grief and Community

This originally appeared in Wednesday Morning Connection


When I was growing up, everyone in the neighborhood had the local paper delivered for one reason only - to read the obituaries. I remember it being the first page my grandmother would turn to. She would read off the ages of those who died shooting a "see that" look at us whenever they were younger than she.

Reading the obituaries was not about a morbid obsession with mortality, it was about the duty to remember those who had died and to comfort the families. And the spiritual work of mercy to pray for the dead was taken very seriously. Funeral masses and monthly memorial masses were always well attended for that reason. My grandmother's prayer book bulges with memorial cards from funerals and wakes. All of it to commemorate those who have gone before us and to remember them in prayer that they enjoy the mercy of the Savior.

One of the popular readings for the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed is from the Book of Wisdom: "...their hope is full of immortality" (Wis.3:4). As a Christian people we approach death with hope and confidence for it is the gateway to an everlasting life with the God we long to see. Nonetheless, we never lose sight of the fact that death is a real loss. While the lives of our loved ones are changed and not ended, that change is real and leaves us with a deep sense of grief. Our words of comfort are always accompanied by gestures such as holding hands, crying together and remembering together. Grief brings us right up to one of life's great paradoxes for we are never so alone as when we lose a loved one, and yet we are never so remembered and never so held in prayer by a loving community.

Our shared grief creates community. In the recent past, we have probably never been so united as a country and as a world community as we were after September 11, 2001. There is a shared sense of loss when a soldier is killed, when young people senselessly lose their lives , and when people die unexpectedly in accidents. Even when the loss is economic, when we have even more reason to hold on to our money, we do not forget to be generous. In the face of pain, we remember who we are, that we are inter-connected.

Remembering those who have gone before us and praying for them is a demand of justice. Sharing grief is a constituent element of Christian community. The Church, in fact, was born in the upper room where Jesus shared a last meal with his disciples and where the apostles later gathered to mourn his death. The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed is a time not only to remember where we came from and where we are going, but who we are - a people bonded by loss and directed by a hope full of immortality.


PRAYER

Loving Father,
We celebrate your victory over death
which we already taste when our grief
draws us into the consolation of community.

We pray for those who have gone before us
marked with the sign of faith,
that one more act of mercy may attend them
as they journey into your presence.

Make us generous so that no one may feel
abandoned in their bereavement.

We ask this through Christ our Lord
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God forever and ever.
Amen.

Oh, that you would rend the heavens!

While working as a chaplain at Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River, I was called to the emergency room at 2:00 am on a Friday night. A young man had overdosed on heroin which was making a big comeback to the streets of the Spindle City. The hospital staff wanted me to be there when the father came in to identify the body.

The doctors, nurses and security personnel were noticeably tense as they wanted for the father to arrive. Though they were used to sudden, tragic deaths, this particular overdose had them shaken.

About fifteen minutes after I arrived, we heard the whoosh of the automatic doors leading into the foyer of the emergency room. The humid night air rushed in like a gasp as the father walked in.

We were ushered by the security guard into a room where the young man lay cold and motionless on a gurney, a white sheet covering all but his yellow, chalky feet.

The nurse asked the father if he was ready. When he nodded, the nurse pulled the sheet up so only he could see the face. We all held our breath, the hum of the monitors the only perceptible noise.

The father said, "You finally did it! Good riddance!", then turned his back on the body.

A shocked "uh-oh" look came on the nurse and security guard. We were expecting grief and got anger. Of course, grief is just anger with claws, at least in situations like these. The difference is that with grief you can put your hand on the person's shoulder or hold his hand while he cries. With anger, you have to say something. So the nurse gave me a look as if to say, "You take it from here now, Father."

Right on cue I said, "He put you through a lot, didn't he."

"Oh Father, you don't know," he replied. "What I went through, all for him to end up like this!"

He went on to tell us about the sleepless nights waiting for him to come home, driving around the city trying to find him, bailing him out of jail, mopping up his vomit and washing his urine-drenched clothes. This man had given another man life and watched him throw it away.

His teeth unclenched, his shoulders rolled down, and his fists relaxed. It was all over now. And he knew that this was the only way it could possibly have ended.

I was reminded of a mother whose son was also a heroin addict. She flatly told me with cold resignation that she prayed that her son would just die. By no means was she a heartless woman. She just couldn't bear to see her son in such an undignified state anymore. It gives you some inkling of how devastating this addiction is to individuals and to families.

We stood in silence around the lifeless body. Then the nurse told the father how sorry he was for his loss and that they had done all they could to save him. The father said, "Thank you," and picked up a white plastic bag with his son's few belongings - an empty wallet and a watch.

I invited the father to a room that had been set aside for pastoral counseling. The anger was gone, so we could just sit together in silence. He decided to go through his son's wallet and found a health insurance card with the words, "Your health is important." He showed me the card, scoffing at the irony. Then he put his hands on his knees, stood himself up and thanked me with a sigh. "Well, I've got to go tell his mother." After going to take one more look at his son, he parted the automatic glass doors and was gone.

I thought about that man for some reason during Mass this weekend. Maybe it was the, "You do not know the day or the hour," or perhaps it was, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down with the mountains quaking before you!" I wondered if joy and hope ever came back into that man's life.

Then I trembled when I realized that God had used me to "rend the heavens" and to be present to a man in his tragedy.

One Last Act of Mercy

The poet, Maya Angelou, was invited to speak at a conference. To much applause, she stepped onto the stage and approached the podium. Before speaking, however, she looked uncomfortable and started to squirm. She told the audience, "This stage is so crowded. I can barely move. There are people all around me." At first, the audience thought she was crazy because she was alone on the stage. As she continued, they began to grasp her meaning. Though she was physically alone on the stage, the reason she was there in the first place was because of the sacrifices and endeavors of many people who came before her. They were the educators, the preachers, the soldiers, the activists, the writers who all made it possible for her to be who she was and to do what she does. She was paying tribute to all those individuals who crowded the stage of her life and made it possible for her to be there that evening.

It is often said that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Everything about us and our lives comes from those who went ahead of us - our language, our clothing, our careers, our freedom and our faith. It is natural for us to want to acknowledge those soldiers, politicians and benefactors and to build monuments to them. Many of our buildings and boulevards take their names from deceased members of our community. Even as we look around this church today, we see windows, pews and statues dedicated to the memory of parishioners who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. And none of us can fail to remember our family members and what they have done for us. Our lives are indeed crowded by the sacrifices and endeavors of so many people who went before us, and we owe them a profound debt.

There is one man above all to whom we owe an infinite debt of love and respect. No other man has sacrificed so much for us. This man has not only gone before us but has gone ahead of us to win for us the hope of everlasting life. We speak, of course, of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Other great women and men have left a legacy of political or literary achievement. But, Jesus has left us a legacy of undying hope. With Jesus, death is transformed forever and life along with it. We no longer look on death as an end but as a beginning. We no longer look on death as a defeat for humanity, but as the guarantee of a future of peace.

The first reading from the book of Wisdom explains how faith transforms our view of death. In the ancient world, there was a vague sense of the immortality of the soul. However, pagans did not expect life after death to be any better than life on earth. As they understood it, the dead traveled to a gloomy, hopeless underworld where they wandered aimlessly. It was more like a never-ending death than an everlasting life. Their gods were often selfish and mean-spirited, and so pagans had little hope that an afterlife governed by such gods could be anything but empty and meaningless.

How different the understanding of death we read about in the book of Wisdom (Wis.3:1-9)! The God of Israel is a good and merciful God. Those who have died are in the hands of this God beyond the reach of any torment or suffering. Because God is good, they enjoy a profound peace as they rest with him. So it is with our loved ones who have died and so it will one day be for us who embrace faith in Jesus Christ.

The second reading from the letter to the Romans (Rom.5:5-11) explains just how good and merciful this God is. Out of love for sinful humanity, God sent his only Son to die for us. This Son was pure and sinless. And yet, to assure for us a place at the table of life, he died for us. He took upon himself the death we deserved for our sins. We rightly celebrate as heroes those who give their lives to save others. Yet, has anyone in history ever died for an enemy? Has anyone ever given his life for someone who hated him? Jesus has done such a thing for us. Now we can approach the Father with hope and confidence because the price of admission has been paid in full for us through the blood of Christ.

Praying for the dead is an ancient tradition of the Church and one of the spiritual works of mercy. It is done with faith and confidence that, for those who have died, one last great act of mercy attends them before they enter the gates of heaven and are ushered into the presence of God Almighty. One more cleansing in the blood of the Lamb removes each and every stain of guilt and sin so that those who have been washed through the waters of baptism and purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit may take their place among the apostles, martyrs and saints. We pray for the dead not with fear but with confidence and hope. We pray for the dead also with a sense of duty that those who have sacrificed so much for us should be assured of our prayers as they approach the judgment seat of a just God.

This church is crowded today - not so much with physical people but with the memory and presence of those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. Because of the mystical union of all believers, all of heaven joins us in this celebration. Our relationships and connections to those who have died is changed, not ended. And so, every Eucharist is a remembrance. On this day, we make a special point of commemorating the faithful departed - the members of our family and of our parish along with those souls who have no one to pray for them - so that we can be assured of their prayers also as we make our way to our heavenly inheritance.

Henri Nouwen on Death

Taken from this great spiritual author's book, Bread for the Journey


Many people say, "I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying." This is quite understandable, since dying often means illness, pain, dependency, and loneliness.

The fear of dying is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the most human of all human fears. Jesus himself entered into that fear. In his anguish "sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44). How must we deal with our fear of dying? Like Jesus we must pray that we may receive special strength to make the great passage to new life. Then we can trust that God will send us an angel to comfort us, as he sent an angel to Jesus.

We often wonder how death will occur for us. Through illness, accident, war, or a natural disaster? Will our deaths happen suddenly or gradually? There are no answers for these questions, so we really should not spend time worrying about them. We don't know how our lives will end, and this is a blessed ignorance! But there is an important question that we should consider: When our time to die comes, will we die in such a way that those we leave behind will not be devastated by grief or left with feelings of shame or guilt?

How we leave others depends largely on how we prepare ourselves for death. When we are able to die with grateful hearts, grateful to God and our families and friends, our deaths can become sources of life for others.

How do we make our deaths gifts for others? Very often people's lives are destroyed, harmed or permanently wounded by the deaths of their relatives or friends. We have to do whatever we can to avoid this. When we are near death what we say to those who are close to us, whether in spoken or in written words, is very important. When we express gratitude to them, ask forgiveness for our shortcomings and offer forgiveness for theirs, and express our sincere desire that they continue their lives without remorse but remembering the graces of our lives, then our deaths can become true gifts.

Hope and faith will both come to an end when we die. But love will remain. Love is eternal. Love comes from God and returns to God. When we die, we will lose everything that life gave us except love. The love with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us. It is the divine, indestructible core of our being. This love not only will remain but will also bear fruit from generation to generation.

When we approach death let us say to those we leave behind, "Don't let your heart be troubled. The love of God that dwells in my heart will come to you and offer you consolation and comfort."

A Hope Full of Immortality

The ancient Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul. It was a natural consequence of their understanding of the human person being composed of body and soul. The body, like all matter, decayed and died, but the soul, which was immaterial, lived on in some fashion.

The ancient Hebrews came later to the idea of the soul's immortality. Unlike the Greeks however, Jews never divided the human person into sections such as body and soul. The human person is always an indivisible whole in Scripture. Rather than a philosophical conclusion, the immortality of the soul developed from faith in God's unfailing justice. Through the centuries it became painfully evident that full justice was not possible in this life. Wealth and a long life were not always the lot of those who walked in the Lord's ways. Poverty was not a punishment for sinfulness and neither was wealth the fruit of sanctity. If God is just, then his justice must make itself manifest in another life after death.

Pope Benedict XVI takes up this theme in his encyclical on Christian hope, Spe Salvi:

A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world....I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life....Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so.

As Christians, we have an even deeper understanding revealed to us by Jesus. The promise of everlasting life is a manifestation of God's love and desire to not lose anyone to death. As we hear in one of the suggested gospel readings for this coming Sunday: "And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day" (John 6:39). In Jesus, God reveals that his justice is not ultimately about what each of us deserves, whether good or bad, but about the loving mercy with which he desires to welcome us to the inheritance he has promised us through faith. God's mercy perfects his justice.


Pope Benedict XVI continues:

This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life.