All Souls

Grieving is hard work. Today I am spending time thinking about all the people I know who died this past year and the list is long. For many of my friends who have lost spouses the grieving process is even more difficult. The paradox of a happy, long and caring marriage is that when death comes to one spouse, the other hurts even more deeply. While everyone realizes that this is natural and a testament to the love shared, it does not make it easier.

There are no easy answers, but there is a simple response, and it is the Danish mystic and former secretary general of the United Nations writing in his now famous journal, Markings, who says it best for me, "Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away." Not to run away is always the challenge we face when life becomes difficult, painful and confusing. To stay in the moment, to learn to welcome what comes our way, is the task of every believer and it is possible because our faith promises that Christ is always near and did not run away from his own misery and suffering. The memory of his suffering and death becomes the ground upon which we build our hope.

Jesus is also very gentle when it comes to suffering, death and the loss people feel after death. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened," he says, "and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11: 28-30) The nearer we allow the Lord to be to our suffering and loss, the more he can help make our heavy burdens light.

All Souls day is a time of sweet sorrow. Because we have made and been blessed with good friends, we are grateful, but we miss them all the more when they die and that fills us with sorrow. We can't talk with them, see them or depend upon them in the same way we have in the past. In a very real sense, we are lost, even frantic, like a child in a mall who has lost of her parents. Even more frightening, a certain level of depression is natural and necessary to grieve fully because it is only in appreciating how much we have lost that we begin to sense the light for the next part of our journey.

Today is a good time to be grateful for all those, now dead, with whom you have walked in life, and to pray for the faith that allows us to remember that they are with us still. In the words of the Preface for the Mass of Christian death: "Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended."

Today, don't run away from death. Hold it gently with Christ.

The Exaltation of the Cross

“We are disgusted with this wretched food!" Num. 21:5

Today is the anniversary of my father’s death.  I don’t usually remember anniversaries but my mother planted this one deep in my spirit.  As people came to Dad's wake to offer her a word of consolation, she reminded them that after months of struggling to breathe and swallow following a devastating stroke, my father was taken down from his cross on the feast of the exaltation of the Cross. Further, she told everyone, he would be buried on the feast of the Stigmata of St Francis. Because faith was an everyday experience for my mother, very much like breathing, the liturgical calendar was important to her, and she made sure it was for us as well.  The liturgy was an anchor that reminded us each day of God's enduring presence.

Today, therefore, I invite you to reflect on a brief passage from the book of Numbers, named for the census the Lord orders of all men over twenty years old who would be fit for military service. "We are disgusted with this wretched food," the Israelites complain. Though not funny, the passage makes me smile thinking of my father who never saw a meal he didn’t like, especially if it was prepared for him. Dad’s spirit was gentle and kind, and he listened far more than he spoke, but he couldn’t boil water. More important, he was poor as a boy and every meal was an occasion of gratitude. His meal prayer always made us smile.  “Thank God for the next meal,” he said, “we’re sure of this one.”  Food was a gift which he did not always have as a young man.  He could never imagine being disgusted with anything placed before him.

The Israelites wandering in the desert learned this lesson the hard way.  The more they complained, the more God reacted, sending snakes to bite them.  It was only Moses’ plea to God to forgive his people that softened God’s heart. God instructed Moses to fashion a bronze serpent, put it on a pole and hold it up before the people. If they looked at it they would be healed. The bronze serpent became a reminder to them never to take for granted God’s mercy and love in freeing them from slavery.  Neither should we.  Although we may not always like the food set before us, a word of gratitude for those who grew it and prepared it is a wonderful way to honor the God of creation. Further, by pausing today before a crucifix on this feast of the exaltation of the Cross, we celebrate the God who gave his life so that we might have a place at the eternal banquet.