Readings of the day: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Romans 6:3-9; John 6:37-40 (Any readings for Masses for the Dead may be used on this day.)
What is heaven like? What happens to us
after we die? Does anyone know the answers to these questions? I presume that none
of us do fully. But then if nobody really knows what heaven is like or what happens
after we die, then what is the point of our celebration today, our
Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed; of All Souls?
Our commemoration; our remembrance of
all who have gone before us in death and are experiencing or awaiting heaven
would be pointless if it were about knowledge. While we live here on earth, we
cannot know fully what heaven is like, or what will happen at the end of our earthly
lives. Jesus’ first disciples saw him after his resurrection and witnessed his
ascension into heaven. They have handed on to us their experience of these
events. But none of us, as far as I know, have experienced firsthand what
happens after our earthly lives end.
What we lack in knowledge of what
happens after death, we make up for in hope. The point, the foundation, of our
remembrance as Church of All Souls is hope. In what specifically do we hope? We
hope in eternal life with God, for those who have gone before us in death and,
one day, for ourselves also.
But is hope not a kind of unreasonable
desire or foolish optimism? Some of us may hope to win a lottery, for instance,
but this expectation would be unrealistic. Our hope for eternal life is not
this kind of expectation of the near-impossible. Ours is a founded hope: Based on God’s past and present loving, merciful
action in our favor, we hope in God’s future promise of eternal life.
Our first reading, from the book of the
prophet Isaiah, and our Gospel reading today from John speak especially about
this founded hope we have in eternal life. God has been with us in the past,
Isaiah says to a people in exile, many of whom were dying without ever seeing
Israel, their homeland, again. This, Isaiah says, is the God “to whom we [have]
looked to save us.” God has saved us already, many times: In the garden
after Adam and Eve had first fallen into sin; in protecting Cain although Cain
had murdered his brother Abel; from the waters of the great flood; through
Moses from slavery in Egypt…
This history of God’s past loving,
merciful action; of God’s salvation is all in Isaiah’s background as he speaks.
Based on this history of God’s salvation, Isaiah invites an exiled people to
hope in God’s promise of an even greater fullness of this salvation. The same
God who has saved us in the past and is with us in the present “will destroy
death… will wipe away the tears from all faces… On that day it will be said:
Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us”! Have hope in God who has saved
us before, is with us to save us now, and will save us again, once and for all,
in the future, Isaiah says.
We hear this same message through Jesus’
raising of Lazarus in our Gospel reading. God has been with us and has loved us
in the past. God’s saving presence and love carries over into the present. Even
those who did not believe that Jesus was God acknowledged the love of God past
and present being worked through him: “See how he loved” Lazarus. Jesus trusts
and hopes in our Father because of God’s past saving action: “Father… I know
that you always hear me.” Because of this trust; this founded hope, Jesus is
able to make God’s past saving action present: “Lazarus, come out”!
And there is more: Jesus, like Isaiah,
invites us to hope in future fullness of salvation. “Untie [Lazarus] and let
him go,” Jesus says to the crowds. This
act is only possible for the people to whom Jesus speaks if they have hope;
founded yet nonetheless bold hope. The raising of Lazarus is a sign of the decisive
salvation to come through Jesus’ own resurrection. We are invited to hope for
salvation and, even more remarkably, Jesus asks us to cooperate with him, with
God, in God’s work of salvation; of untying the bonds of death that hold us; of
raising us all to eternal life; of bringing us home to our God who made us and has
loved us all along.
Might we imagine salvation; what happens
to us after our lives on earth end; eternal life as going home? We pray this in
our Eucharistic Prayer; words we hear at funerals and will pray here in a few
moments: “For your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended and, when this
earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in
heaven.”
Our baptism is especially a sign of our
salvation; eternal life; going home. St. Paul reminds us in our second reading
from Romans that “we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death” but that “if we” are united “with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall
also be united with him in the resurrection.” We are united by baptism with
Christ in his death and in his resurrection, and we are also called by this
same sacrament to be united with Christ in going home one day to our loving
God.
After a long journey, how many of us
want nothing more than to be home? Joseph Bernardin, the late Cardinal
Archbishop of Chicago, also understood our entry into eternal life as going
home. In his final memoir, The Gift of
Peace, Cardinal Bernardin reflects on a visit to his “parents’ homeland… in
Northern Italy,” a place he had only seen previously through his “mother’s
photo albums.” Cardinal Bernardin writes of his visit, “As soon as we entered
the valley, I said, ‘My God, I know this place. I am home.’ Somehow I
think crossing from this life into eternal life will be similar. I will be
home.”
An experience of mine is similar to that
of Cardinal Bernardin. Ten or more years ago, my mother worked out the
genealogy of her mother’s (my grandmother’s) family. I helped by translating
records and newspaper clippings that were in French into English for non-French
speakers in my family. But I had never been to the little village north of
Toronto where my grandmother and her ancestors were from. Between my last two
years in seminary, I finally went with my parents to Grandma’s birthplace. We
were met there by Grandma’s cousin and his wife, who drove us to the house of
another of Grandma’s cousins. This cousin, named Jim,* had lived most of his
life as a recluse after finding his father’s body in a barn. Jim’s father had
taken his own life. Unexpectedly, Jim came out of his house to greet us that
day. And then he was at supper with us, regaling us with stories of our family
history! Like Lazarus in our Gospel reading, did Jim respond to a call to “come
out” from years of loneliness and sadness to share his story? Were we who were
at table that evening the people asked by Jesus, “Untie him and let him go”?
There was joy at table that evening, Jim’s and all of ours; a sign of the eternal
joy that I imagine awaits us in heaven.
I could have said with Cardinal
Bernardin upon visiting my ancestral homeland, “My God, I know this
place. I am home.” I think similarly of what eternal life will be, for me
and for all of us. This, at least is my hope. Is it our hope? It is a bold hope
not based on knowledge, but nonetheless a founded hope. God has been with us
and loved us in the past, is with us and loves us in the present, and calls us
to future hope; our hope we first expressed through our baptism into Christ’s
death and resurrection; our hope in the fullness of God’s salvation, when together
we “will be home.”
*Name has been changed.
*Name has been changed.
No comments:
Post a Comment