Wis
3:1-6,9
1 Cor 15:20-26
Jn 12:23-28
The sonnet
begins with a challenge directed at death as if it were a person:
"Death be
not proud,
though some
have called thee
Mighty and
dreadful, for,
thou art not so
. . . "
It ends ten
short lines later with gentle reassurance and a sense of hope directed to those
who are dying and to those who survive and must go on.
"One short
sleep past,
we wake
eternally,
And death shall
be no more,
death, thou
shalt die."
In his tenth
holy sonnet, the 17th century Anglican priest and poet John Donne,
tells the personification of death that he thinks very little of its reputation
or its power.
We heard in
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians,
"For as by
a man came death, by a man came also the resurrection.
For as in Adam
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
A few verses
later we read Paul's declaration,
"The last
enemy to be destroyed is death."
It was these
words that allowed Donne to end his sonnet as he did,
"And death
shall be no more,
Death thou
shalt die."
A quiet
moment. A slight pause. And it is over.
Jesus victory
over death does not mean that we will not die.
Dying can never be avoided. Even though we can sometimes postpone it briefly,
we all die. But, we do not have to submit to death. We never have to submit to
the nihilism of the sad pseudo-sophisticate who sniffs that death is nothing
more than returning to the food chain.
That is true only if one chooses to consciously and intentionally reject
the promise of Jesus' redeeming act. That act of rejection requires great
effort and determination.
There are many
challenges for those of us who must go on after the death of someone we love.
The greatest of those challenges is grieving. Grieving is never easy. It is
never quick. Grief never reaches so-called 'closure,' one of the most bizarre
and phony concepts ever forced down the throats of a gullible public.
The first reading proclaimed,
"The souls
of the just are in the hands of God
and no torment
shall touch them."
It is not a stretch from the image of the souls of the
just in the hands of God to Donne’s description,
“One
short sleep past,
we wake
eternally,
And death shall
be no more”
We heard in the Gospel just
proclaimed: "Whoever serves me must
follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be." This is our task and our mandate: to serve
and follow Jesus, who freed us from the thrall of death. Only because of Jesus' saving act could Donne
admonish death against being proud.
The words of the readings are
a source of some consolation. But that
consolation can only be partial. The words can never fully ease the pain of the
broken hearted, they cannot answer the questions of those who wonder how to go
on after the death of a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, or a friend.
Grieving is the
most solitary and isolating of all human experiences. Grief is the great leveler. It brings both the peasant and the dictator
to his knees in pain, rage, and sorrow.
Grieving sets off an insatiable hunger in the poor as well as in the
wealthy gourmand, the jet-setter and the subway pass commuter. Grief
brings all of us to our knees, sometimes in prayer and oftentimes, perhaps most
often, in pain. It is, for each of us,
an uncharted course through a wide variety of emotions. No one can travel it for or with us. At best others can offer support, a listening
ear, and an understanding heart. They
should never offer the pseudo-therapeutic lie of ‘closure.’
No writer ever
described the grief better than C.S. Lewis did in the opening sentence of the
small diary he kept after his wife's death titled A Grief Observed. It begins,
“No one ever
told me that grief felt so like fear.
I am not
afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.
The same
fluttering in the stomach,
the same
restlessness, the yawning.
I keep on
swallowing."
Grieving takes
time. It takes energy. It takes more
than the week or two, or the maximum couple of months, that American society
insists it should. It never reaches
closure. With time a loved one's death becomes part of a new reality. Entering that new reality compels new ways of
living and understanding for all who survive.
In just a few
moments you will hear
"
. . . for your faithful
Lord, life is changed not ended. . . . "
The faithful is
not limited to the one or ones for whom the Mass is being offered. The faithful includes all of us here,
struggling with our memories and thoughts, because our lives were also
changed.
And so today,
as we remember those from the Carmel Terrace community who died we take comfort
in the Church’s ancient prayer for the dead:
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 they rest
in peace."
Amen.
_________________________________________________________________
November is the month of All Souls. On Wednesday I will celebrate a Memorial Mass for the Dead who lived at Carmel Terrace in Framingham, MA. I've been going there for over 12 years. It has become my parish in many ways. I celebrate Mass there two to four times per week. There will be some families as well as the residents some of whom I've known for 12 years. We will use the funeral liturgies and prayers. Homily above.
The photos are from the Church of St. Casimir, a jesuit church in Vilnius, Lithuania. Construction was begun in 1604. There were several changes of ownership including the commies who transformed it into the museum of atheism. It was returned to the Society in the late 1980s.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
