All
Souls Day
November
2,
2003
Where do we go when we
die?
It
is a bad Halloween joke. What do you call an atheist in a casket? (One of my
students gave a one word answer:
Home?) The official answer – “All dressed up, no place to go…” It’s
a good starting point in celebrating today’s feast. What happens when we
die? Where do we go? When my family members/friends die, is there a way that
I can be connected to them? A way that I can assist them? Are they happy? At
rest? The experience of death raises all of these questions.
I spent a good part of Halloween night lying in a casket (In the Haunted Garage
at the Newman Center). It was a real casket, and though it was comfortable because
of the pillows inside, it did have a way of making me think about my own death,
my own passing from this world. It will happen, that’s a guarantee. When
my body lies in that final coffin, what will happen to me? Where do we go when
we die?
Today’s feast day of All Souls begins to give us an answer to those questions.
The practice of praying for the dead, the offering of mass intentions, the visiting
of graveyards – they all make sense if you believe the foundational truth
of Christianity. For “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, we too, might live in newness of life…” Because Jesus
is raised into newness of life – into fullness of life by God’s glory – there
is hope for us. John’s gospel echoes that truth: “It is the will
of my Father that everyone who sees the son and believes in him may have eternal
life…”
There is a song by the group called Secret Garden. It speaks to me of the reason
for our hope. In an Irish sounding ballad, it says: “You raise me up
so
I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong
when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up, to more than I can be…” It
is that raising up that anchors the feast of All Souls. Primarily that raising
up is God’s action in our lives. It is the raising up of our hopes and
dreams and sadness and tears. It is that end time summation of all we are and
hoped to be. Like a reunion with a long lost family member or friend, the will
of the Father is to have us with him.
But there is a second raising up we celebrate today. It is the raising up of
our prayers for the deceased. Because we love them, because they have been so
much a part of our lives, we raise them up in prayer to God, hopeful that just
as our love made a difference in their living, just as our care raised them up
to ‘all that they could be” on this earth, so our love will raise
them up to union with God. It becomes not just Jesus’ desire that he should
lose nothing of what God gave him, but our desire that God should lose nothing
of what we surrender back to him. So we visit cemeteries. We offer masses, we
pray rosaries. We ‘raise up to God’ the gift of our family members,
friends, and neighbors.
And as to what that life will look like – as to where they go when they
die – isn’t it our hope/belief/experience that it is the ‘raised
up’ life they enjoy. In all the experiences you and I have known of being
raised up, we experience the foreshadowing of that life. Whenever we have been
lifted up to ‘more than we could be’ – we are participating
already in the life of heaven.
So this week, visit a cemetery. Spend some time walking there – lifting
up those who have gone before you in prayer. Spend time being lifted up by their
lives and love. Let their continued care for you, lift you up to all that you
can be…
And we pray, as the church has ever prayed:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
Amen.
And may the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace… Amen.