We have had a lovely summer day today – just the right mix of breeze, sun and greenery around. No storm, no rain, no heat. No terrorist attacks or threats of such. Reports of stable economy on TV, a cup of morning coffee and a book on patio table, birds at the feeder in the garden. Peace and quiet prosperity that seem to have no end.
The church we went to in the morning was also near perfect, both in its architecture and interior decoration which here in Canada tends to be on a severe side, with plenty of bare wall and little religious art, yet genteel and warm.
Flower beds which surrounded the tipi- shaped round structure of solid brick seemed to be smiling to the parishioners slowly entering the carved wooden door.
Our friend’s coffin was standing in the porch, surrounded by family members and friends who, once in a while, would come close and look at his quiet face and rosary-twined hands.
Yes, it was a funeral we were attending on this lovely summer day, one of those days when one is tempted to deny the very existence of death. Yet here we were, looking at ravages of the enemy of life, stunned by our friend’s stillness.
I do not think I will ever get used to death and I am sure I am not alone in it.
In the faithless West we do everything to relegate death and dying from the public sphere, language and symbols. There are many well-intended efforts to fulfill dying people’s last wishes, a trip to Las Vegas for instance, of a meeting with a famous film star.. a last minute wedding – but nothing that would be truly lasting beyond that last moment.
Suffering should be invisible to the public eye – and possibly terminated, mourning not observed. The usual sentiment, expressed right after the condolences is that “life must go on”. The dead are to be forgotten. They are last year’s news.
Outside the Catholic Church there is little understanding of this inescapable monumental transition:
From this limited life here to the unlimited THERE.
From spiritual numbness, from seeing dimly, as if through the veil – to seeing face to Face.
From lying to ourselves about our sins and denying them – to seeing them in the light of God’s purity and love.
From paralysing physical suffering and mental anguish – to all that boundless God’s freedom and joy unlimited.
Only the Catholic Church pays attention to need of spiritual preparedness for passing through the Gate to eternity.
The first step leading to the Gate is always faith – and all that it involves. Baptism and the Sacraments open this Gate wide, but we must watch our step so that we do not shut it with un-repented grave sins.
The need for lifelong effort to build up strong faith in God is never as obvious as at the time of final illness and death, especially when it is sudden. It is for a reason that in Rosary we beg Mary, with each single prayer, that she prays for us “now and at the hour of our death”.
The lucky devotees of Rosary utter this plea thousands of times over years…
The second step to the Gate is trust. The simplest of words, “Jesus, I trust you” can open the Gate in an instant – no matter how sinful we had been.
The third step, I think, is “right mindfulness” ( as Buddhists would say but mean something different by these words) which Jesus expressed by words
“Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven
that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
Fewer attachments here make for a light journey There.
At every step we must be watchful and prepared. For what? For the day and hour of our death.
.. be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks”.
And
“You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”
Alas..
“Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
And here is when we rightly tremble..
“Stay awake and be ready!
For you do not know on what day your Lord will come”