Paschal Path: Dying and Rising Daily

“Lord, I pray you to help me leave behind the past, to make space to birth a new way of life. Amen.”

— Raul Mendoza

Recently I was called in the morning to anoint a 93-year-old man at Sewickley Valley Hospital. He was a member of my first parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Hopewell Township and was an usher and daily communicant. His family always came to the early 7:30 AM Sunday Mass and sat in the first pew. He had two daughters and one son and his wife was buried four years ago. He lived with one of his daughters who took him daily to Elderberry Court in Ambridge for adult day care. After anointing him in the hospital room, various medical people came in. One was a female Indian physician who gave a full, compassionate, report of his condition and noted that if it were her dad or grandfather, she would take no more extraordinary measures to keep him alive. A family friend, a surgeon at the hospital, came in to offer support and comfort to the family. As the family listened intently, they held on to every word for hope and clarity in the midst of a painful situation.

After the anointing of the sick and consultation with the doctors, the family felt freer in letting go. It was as if a light streaked through the room when the surgeon said, “We must all die at some time and 93 isn’t a bad age to die at.” After the man’s funeral, we traveled to St. Joseph Cemetery for his interment and I noted that every time I thought of him, I was reminded of the “laughing Jesus” who laughed away all the demons of sadness, gloom and sorrow.

On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, as the springtime festival of Passover nears, Jesus reminds us in John 12: 24-26, “...unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life looses it, and whoever hates his life in this world, will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also my servant will be.”

Jesus points to the Paschal Mystery — dying and rising is the paradigm for Christian discipleship. The way of the Cross is the way that leads to the Resurrection. And death is part of life. We are born to die, like the surgeon reminded us in that hospital room. We must die a little each day. Dying to self is a gradual process and it can happen in very little ways:

• every act of humility involves dying to pride
• every act of courage involves dying to cowardice
• every act of kindness involves dying to cruelty
• every act of trust involves dying to uncertainty
• every act of love involves dying to selfishness
• every act of forgiveness involves dying to retaliation
• every act of friendship involves dying to self-concern
• every act of spiritual maturity involves dying to worldly ways
• every act of personal freedom involves dying to unhealthy attachments
• every act of prayer involves dying to your own self-will.

The hour of Jesus’ glory is the hour of His passing over to the Father, and His whole life leads up to that hour, “so that the Son of man may be glorified.” Jesus, the humble, suffering servant, lies down his life freely and willingly, to produce abundant fruit: the salvation of all. It is through His death that we bear much fruit. By destroying the power of sin and death once and for all, and by reconciling humankind once and for all, He restores the possibility of life with God forever. Jesus speaks of the time of His death and resurrection as the hour when He will be glorified for perfectly fulfilling His Father’s will. So too, we must accept or reject Jesus and His saving grace in our own lives, each and every hour.

Often times we live in a rushing, running-out-of-time world. It almost seems like we live in the emergency room. However, for a Christian’s life, time is to gracefully fulfill God’s will in every situation. The Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos, from which we get the word “chronology,” is the temporal succession of days, months and years that we struggle to harness for our own chosen self-endeavors. However, kairos, or "God’s time or retreat time," is very different. Kairos is when human time and God’s time intersect, as in such moments as a sacrament, prayer, forgiveness, or a wedding. It is where the abundance of God’s presence graces our life’s journey, and thus transcends time.

St. Leo the Great advises us about Lent: “Let us prepare ourselves most profitably by the fast of forty days ... let us use the revered institutions of this health-giving time and cleanse the mirror of our heart with greater care.” God’s unfailing grace offers us time to whole heartedly commit ourselves to serving Him and others. The measure of the glory of discipleship and its fruitfulness is to serve people faithfully, joyfully and humbly.

Looking back on the life of this 93-year-old man, a life of dedication to Church, sacrifice for family and service to neighbor, reinforced for me the glory of the Cross and its victory in Resurrection as I tended to him in this Holy Lenten Pilgrimage of 2012. Death is swallowed in victory. The passing over of this moral earthly life is the hour of triumph.

Lenten Prayer: The Cross Is

The Cross is the hope of Christians,

The Cross is the Resurrection of the dead.

The Cross is the way of the lost.

The Cross is the savior of the Lost.

The Cross is the staff of the lame.

The Cross is the guide of the blind.

The Cross is the strength of the weak.

The Cross is the doctor of the sick.

The Cross is the aim of the priest.

The Cross is the hope of the hopeless.

The Cross is the freedom of the slaves.

The Cross is the power of the kings.

The Cross is the water of the seeds.

The Cross is consolation of the bondsmen.

The Cross is the source of those who seek water.

The Cross is the cloth of the naked.

We thank You, Father, for the Cross. Amen.

— Anonymous

Ordinary Time 32

“No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor has the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

- 1 Corinthians 2:9

As we gathered on Tuesday, November 2, Election Day, my thoughts went beyond the “election of new officials” in government, to the “elect” who are “citizens of heaven” with the Lord. On November 2 we also commemorated All Souls Day in which families came from near and far to remember, to celebrate and to pray for our beloved deceased. Whether one’s life is marked by brevity or longevity, it is a sacred journey we make. During the transfer of the body from funeral home to church, Psalm 121:8 is read, “The Lord guards our coming in and going out. May God be with us today as we make this journey with our brother/sister.”

There were 100 families this year, 2010, both within our parish and outside our parish, with whom I experienced the reality of death. Death is a harsh and sad reality of life. However, death is the gateway of the promise of a new life in Christ. When I preach at funerals I remind the mourners that we come seeking God’s comfort, healing and peace, as well as to be comforted by those who mourn the loss of their beloved. I often remind people that in the face of death words fail us; emotions fill us; time stands still; families unite, bringing us back to our roots; friends accompany us to soothe our sorrows; and the Christian community gathers in faith and prayer to uplift our loved ones to God.

The symbols of a funeral are so simple yet powerful. The sprinkling of the casket at the entrance of the church is tied to our Baptism, which initiated our earthly journey as children of God — this journey, now ending, looks toward the promised future glory in heaven. The pall that adorns the body is a symbol of our Baptismal garment marking our Christian dignity, innocence and holiness — this white garment is a clothing of the mantle of God’s eternal glory. As the priest incenses the body, the human body is honored as the temple of the Holy Spirit, the sacred shrine of our living God. At death, even though the soul has left the body, we still venerate that body by incensing it. As the fragrant aroma of the incense rises to heaven, so too, our lives, which have been anointed by this faith-companion whom we remember in love and prayer, rise like incense to God. The Easter Candle, or the Paschal Candle, is a reminder that Christ is the “Light of the World” and He has conquered and overcome sin by His death on the Cross, His shattering of the tomb and His victorious rising — this Paschal path is a Christian mystery. Through Baptism we are called to be a Christian — a “Christ Bearer” and “Christ Bringer” of His light to the world.

The playwright, George Bernard Shaw wrote pointedly, “I am convinced that my life belongs to the whole community; and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in the life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations.”

The month of November is a month of remembrance, thanksgiving and harvest time. We are encouraged to remember and pray for the faithful departed, those members of our families and dearly beloved who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. As Christians we are people who live in hope.

On this 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time and as we come to the close of the liturgical year, the Church’s core message of our Christian faith is a notion of the resurrection from the dead. Resurrection was not always a part of the ancient Jewish theology. The Sadducees, an upper-class, powerful group holding the major seats of the Sanhedrin from 150 BC–70 AD, did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Their beliefs could be summarized in four statements: 1) they were extremely self-sufficient, even denying God’s involvement in everyday life 2) they denied any resurrection of the dead 3) they denied any afterlife 4) they denied the reality of angels and demons. Of course these four beliefs of the Sadducees are in opposition to our beliefs as Christians in which we hold that: 1) through the gift of prayer, we open our hearts to seek God’s strength and grace to do His will daily 2) the promise of our Christian hope is in the glory of the Resurrection 3) heaven is our long-awaited dwelling with God and the saints forever—as we profess each Sunday in the last line of the Creed that “...we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come," and 4) in our daily battles and temptations of life, the Lord sends us angels and messengers to keep us faithful from the devil’s darkness.

The newly beatified John Cardinal Henry Newman (1801-1890) wrote in his prayer for happy death:

O, my Lord and Savior, support me
in that hour, in the strong arms of Thy Sacraments,
and by Thy fresh fragrance of Thy consolations.
Let the absolving words be said over me,
and the holy oils sign and seal me,
and Thy own Body be my Food,
and Thy Blood my sprinkling;
and let my sweet Mother, Mary, breath on me
and my Angel whisper peace to me,
and my glorious Saints...smile upon me;
that in them all, and through them all,
I may receive the gift of perseverance,
and die, as I desire to live,
in Thy Faith, in Thy Church,
in Thy Service, and in Thy Love. Amen.

As Mother Nature yields to the death of winter, our human nature yields our own mortality. It is only in dying that we are born to a new and eternal life. No life is exempt or immune from death. Death is the great equalizer of life. None of us escape death’s grasp. Faith’s hold gives us strength, courage and hope of that most perfect dawning day! In the words of Martha Mary Keane, let us pray, “Dear Jesus, bless each person who has touched my life in the past, the present, and in the future, whether they are living or deceased.”