Life in Death

Tags

All Souls Day, death, eternity, happy death, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, transition

Today’s liturgical feast in Christian churches (All Souls Day) is twinned with that of yesterday: All Saints Day. It makes sense really that those we celebrate as saints while they are alive ought to be more vividly in relationship with God in the spiritual realm afforded by their death to this one. The wonderful thing about today’s feast, however, is that we believe we’re all headed to a fuller life and presence of God when we’re finished here. We have evidence from so many people who have had “near death experiences” or other visions of being in God’s presence during their lives on earth that no one should fear death. But we do.

It could be fear of the unknown or resistance to the pain that often accompanies our last moments on earth that causes us concern. Some of us think we have wasted time and wish for more of it to become better people. Whatever the reasons, all evidence is that what awaits us is more amazing than we can imagine. Here’s a snippet of the way Fr. Jim Van Vurst, OFM reflects on death this morning on the blog.franciscanmedia.org. It offers what may be helpful to our own thoughts or those of someone we may know who struggles with the concept or the reality.

One common misperception is that death is something dreadful that takes life away. Death is neither something or someone that acts upon us. It is, rather, the moment when we transition from our life in earth time into timeless eternity. When we die, we gather all of our life’s moments as we give ourselves to our Creator. It may sound poetic, but in reality it is we who embrace the transitional moment of death — rather than it taking us.

Let us celebrate today those for whom we pray and ask them and God to assure for us the grace of a happy death.

All Saints/All Souls

Tags

All Saints Day, All Souls Day, departed, faithful departed, loved ones, saint, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There has always been a twinning in my religious tradition of first two days of November. The first is, as we saw yesterday, the celebration of all those people whom the Church has recognized – for various reasons – as worthy of the designation “saint.” In one way, I always thought in my youth that today was more important because we were praying with all our might to get our relatives and friends released from any sinfulness that still clung to them as they left the earth, thereby speeding them on to heaven. It was the only day that priests were allowed to celebrate three Masses in one day and we all spent the day petitioning God to hear our constant prayers for our loved ones.

These days it’s common for people to think of the “faithful departed” closer to us than they used to be when heaven was a faraway place to which we ascended. Now we say things like “the veil is very thin” and we sometimes feel our loved ones very close, praying for us, perhaps, and cheering us on in the everyday. My list of “cheerleaders” gets longer as I get older (as with all of us) and it is a comfort to know that what the Church calls the “great cloud of witnesses” is on my side. So today is now a day not only to pray for those loved ones who have departed this realm but also to pray to them and with them for the good of all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those Gone Before Us

Tags

All Saints Day, All Souls Day, departed, God's presence, loved one, Office for the Dead, Peace, prayer, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are some interesting notes today in the text from Fr. Don Miller (http://www.franciscanmedia.com) about this “All Souls Day.” The first is the story of the emergence of such a remembrance. It was in the middle of 11th century, says Father Miller, that “St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, France, decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church.”

I am partial, however, to a second notable thought that appears in the reflection section following the historical statements. Fr. Miller writes: …prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer, we stand in God’s presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death. I find that a sweet comfort as I image myself standing between my cousins, Paul and Jim, who have left us in this past year, and when I find myself in the circle of the four Sisters of St. Joseph who have gone before us during the past month. As I remain quietly in these two saintly companies, I hear St. Paul preaching to the Romans in the familiar words: The souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them…They are in peace.

May all of our dear departed ones rest in peace. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Dead or Alive?

Tags

All Souls Day, communion of saints, just, Peace, souls, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Yesterday I wrote about saints as my Church celebrated all those designated by that title because of recognition of their holy lives. My suggestion was the same as St. Paul’s: that there have been throughout history and are now many more people who deserve the title than those who are listed on our liturgical calendar. It has always been a comfort to me that we follow yesterday with today’s feast of “All Souls,” celebrating (although not always without sadness) and praying for those of our loved ones and all others who have died. There will be services in Christian communities throughout the world today, often in the evening, where names of the deceased will be read and candles will be lit in remembrance. The light generated by the candles reminds us that the light of the person named is still with us and all of the lights taken together brighten the universe in what we call the “communion of saints.”

Later today I will make final preparations to travel tomorrow to Atlanta, Georgia to join my relatives gathered from near and far to release my cousin, Paul, totally into God’s light. This is a hard letting go – too much of a surprise and too soon for us – but our being together and the love shared among us will be our strength. I have assisted at innumerable funeral services in my life and have heard the first reading from today’s liturgy probably more than any other. Somehow, though, today it has touched me more gently and kindly than ever before. Perhaps Paul has opened a new cell in my heart for this news. Whatever the reason, I offer it today as a way to pray for our “dearly departed” who are alive now in God as never before.

The souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace…(WIS 3: 1-3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life After Life

Tags

afterlife, All Souls Day, Christ, Die before you die, faith, God, Lent, near death experiences, resurrection, self-emptying, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

It’s difficult to talk intelligently about something you have never experienced. Sometimes it helps to hear descriptions others give of what has happened to and for them, but there is still a measure of faith needed in those cases in order to believe what they share. This is true especially in stories of “near death experiences” as they give witness to what is perhaps the greatest mystery of life: our death and what lies on the other side of that moment. The Scriptures for this feast of All Souls, when we remember “the faithful departed,” all speak of the hope and the conviction that the souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. (WIS:3:1-9)

I have known this tenet of faith seemingly all my life and have great hopes for an afterlife filled with God but perceptions around that concept have changed over the years and learnings of my life as to what it truly means. As I wrote the title of this morning’s reflection, what arose was a parallel phrase that has become a practice for me over the past several years of Wisdom studies. “Die before you die,” I heard inside myself. Although that sounds rather macabre, what it really means in the everyday is a letting go of what does not serve my growth in order to be ready for the ultimate letting go at the end of my physical life. It’s the follow-on from childhood, one could say, when giving up candy or criticism during Lent helped us to prepare for the day of Christ’s resurrection to new life as indicative of what is in store for us. Now I think of such “giving up/over” as surrender – like the self-emptying of Jesus – in order to be ready for transformation into the lightness of being that is indicated in the Wisdom reading where it says that in the time of their visitation they shall shine and shall dart about as sparks through stubble.

Light is dawning outside my window and it looks like the sun will soon burst forth in the glory of a new day. Just one more metaphor for life after life that sustains me as I prepare for what is ahead in this brief and mysterious gift of life on earth.

A Day to Remember

Tags

Advent, All Souls Day, Christmas, eternity, guardian angels, Hallmark Channel, hearts, lessons of life, love, movies, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

Yesterday the Hallmark Channel began airing their Christmas movies! Normally I tend to avoid the practice of watching and resist even the notion that we should be thinking that far ahead until at least after Thanksgiving. (For my family, Advent was always the main event until December 24th!) On the other hand there is never any violence or other unacceptable behavior in Hallmark movies; they are always all about love. So yesterday I took a knitting break for a half-hour, sitting in the living room where a familiar, sweet climax was unfolding. It was the story of 6-year old girl whose single mother had died and of her new life with her three extraordinarily loving uncles. In a discussion of Christmas, she told her uncles that she wanted to go to her house to celebrate in case her mother should come. Her uncle told her gently that her mother couldn’t be with her now like they were together, “but,” he said, “every time you think of her you can be sure she’s thinking of you.” She replied, “Well, then, she’s thinking of me all the time.”

Today we celebrate the feast of All Souls as we remember our loved ones who have died. The overriding theme for this day is hope, the virtue that allows us to believe among other things that those we love are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. (WIS 3:1) The little girl in the movie, perhaps unbeknownst to her, touched on a deep truth of the spiritual life. We cannot grasp the totality of the workings of the universe but we can have inklings about our connections beyond this physical realm. To believe that we are protected (guardian angels, perhaps?) and loved unceasingly can bring comfort and peace in times of grief and loss as well as in the days when we’d just like one more conversation with our Moms…I say, “GO AHEAD! Have a conversation.” Perhaps you’ll see a familiar sign – or just feel a presence that tells you that “for the faithful life is changed, not ended” and that death cannot break the bonds of those whose core connection is love.

This is a feast of thanksgiving for all those wonderful people who have taught us the lessons of life, for those who have challenged us to be more than we ever thought we could be and for those whose love remains in our hearts for all eternity. A blessed day indeed!