All Soul's Day

Wisdom 3:1-9

1 Cor 15:51-57

Jn 11:17-27

 

"People don't want to let go. . . . They think it's supposed to last forever" 

 

"But it happens anyway . . . . it doesn't matter what you do, you can't stop it."

 

"This living . . . . this life . . . . it doesn't last forever"

 

"It was never supposed to last forever."  

 

These lines come from the poignant final scene of "The Shadow Box,"  Michael Cristofer's 1977 Pulitzer Prize winning play that was later made into a TV movie starring Valerie Harper, Christopher Plummer, and Joann Woodward, directed by Paul Newman.  (The full movie is available on You Tube.  Type in The Shadow Box 1980, video quality adequate to OK).  

 

"The Shadow Box" reminds us of the limits of life.  It recalls the shock when we realize that our lives are finite. It brings into sharp relief the stunning realization that our lives, and the lives of those we love, will end, as they must end for all of us.  The play, set in a kind of hospice, explores the days as death approaches for three unique characters and their family members.  It does not ignore the strains on their relationships when it becomes obvious that death is inevitable, when the realization hits that  "this living . . . . this life . . . it doesn't last forever."  It captures the difficult moment when the realization hits, "It was never supposed to last forever." 

 

 

Being with someone at the moment of death is to experience awe in the truest sense of the word.  The last blip on the cardiac monitor.  The moment when all movement stops.  A sigh as the final breath escapes the body.  Suddenly it is over.  A life.  A relationship.  An era. Everything has ended.  Everything has changed.  

 

" . . . in an instant, in the blink of an eye."

 

Paul described how we all die using one short phrase; In an instant.  In the time it takes to blink.  A mere  flicker in time.  

 

Though the illness that led to death may have been prolonged, though death may have been held off with medical technology, the transition from life to eternal life takes place in an instant.  In that moment when someone we loved dies, we are thrown into the tasks of grieving, mourning, and being bereaved.  We are forced to begin the task of adapting to an absence in our lives.  

 

We don't want to let go.  We never want to let go. We think it is going to last forever. But it doesn't last forever.  It never will.  We rage against the knowledge that we have carried around forever that "It was never supposed to last forever."  

 

While the Church commemorates All Soul's Day  on the Second of November, we experience multiple private personal All Soul's Days throughout the year.  We observe those private All Soul's Days, not in November but in February, or May, or the searing heat of August.  It is a private All Soul's Day as we see the painful anniversaries of the death approach or observe another holiday without those whom we love, or recall something that only we would know. And the pain recurs. 

 

"The soul's of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them."

 

The first verse from Wisdom is a source of consolation, though it may take months to feel it.  The souls of the just are in the hands of God.  The souls of those whom we loved have something more than we could ever imagine.

 

Those whom we mourn have returned to the hands of God.  We will never know the how, the what, or the where of the eternal life won for us through Jesus' sacrifice.  We can never know eternal life until we ourselves have died.  For now, we can only know through faith that the souls of those whom we loved and who loved us, are held now, and for eternity, in the hands of God. That knowledge does not in any way relieve us of the pains and tasks of grieving our loss, but it should at least dull the sharpest edges of grief. 

 

Paul posed two questions in the Letter to the Corinthians. Both are examples of sarcasm. 

 

"Death where is thy victory?"

 

"O death, where is thy sting?"

 

One can almost hear the sneer in his voice.  Death's victory was snatched away through Jesus' passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Hell's sting was defanged by the Body and Blood of Christ.  We know this through faith.  Martha made a profound statement of faith in the gospel just proclaimed. 

 

Imagine the scene. Lazarus' two sisters, friends, and other family,  all gathered at the new tomb.  They felt the heaviness of grief on their shoulders, and the tears of sorrow on their cheeks.  Some were confused.  I suspect others were angry and doubting God's goodness and cursing Him.  

 

"Lord, if you had been here . . . ."

 

"Your brother will rise." 

 

"I know he will rise . . . on the last day." 

 

And the Jesus utters the most consoling words imaginable: "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

 

And then we hear Martha's response: 

"You are the Christ, the Son of God . . . . "

 

Today we commemorate the souls of the dead: family, friends, members of our religious communities, and those who have no one to pray for them.  It is a day to visit the grave and place candles or flowers.  It is a day to attend Mass even though not obligatory.  It is be a day to sit quietly alone, perhaps absentmindedly fingering a rosary, as we recall, grieve for, and pray for those who have died. 

 

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, 

et lux perpetua luceat eis. 

Requiescant in pace. 

 

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, 

and let perpetual light shine upon them. 

May their souls and the souls of the faithful departed

rest in peace.

 

Amen.

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Photos of the crucifix overlooking the Jesuit cemetery at Campion Center in Weston, MA.  The grave of my mentor George Murray, SJ, MD shortly after his burial.  November 18 will be seven years since his death.