Memorial Mass for the Dead (Carmel Terrace)

 

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 17^th 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