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.
Later this morning I will attend a memorial service for the son of a woman for whom I have great admiration. His death preceded his 54th birthday by just a few weeks and was quite sudden. The shock was compounded by the death of my friend’s husband just three weeks previous to that of her son. No words of sympathy or attempts to assuage such grief are adequate for one who bears the loss of those she calls the two great loves of her life. All we can offer is presence. And so I go. I suspect that this event will be a lesson in diversity of belief about God and life while also manifesting a depth of unity brought about by relationship and community.
Psalm 49 speaks loudly of the reality that “you can’t take it with you.” No matter our success or wealth, wise people die, the psalm says, “and likewise the senseless and the stupid pass away leaving to others their wealth.”
That place of “not-knowing” that I spoke of yesterday still holds me today as I think of the storm called Harvey that just won’t quit. How do people recover from that kind of devastation – both environmental and human? Even here, at almost the farthest northern point in our country away from those swirling waters and broken lives, I feel viscerally the distress and death. Physical death, the death of dreams, of possessions – all must reside inside any of us who have even seen the images on television and more likely if we know people living in Texas – and today in Louisiana. I have rarely felt the draw of depression on such a scale.
Today we hear Moses (DT 30:15-20) telling the people that God has set before them a choice between life and death, blessing and curse. He urges them to “Choose life!” obeying the commandments, loving God and walking in God’s ways. Whenever I hear those two words, “Choose life” (even as a wedding toast), a tape plays in my head of a long-remembered verse that I don’t see in the Scriptures but don’t know where else I would have learned it. This morning I determined to find out and was successful because another blogger, a Benedictine Sister, used it in her message this morning. She said the author was Sister Helen Kelly. A google search was unsuccessful but I found many references to Helen Keller – a person renowned for her ability and willingness to choose life. But back to my point…
