Joh 6:37-40
Is 25:6.7-9
Phil 3:20-21
focus: We have to pray for our deceased that they may fully arrive home in heaven. At the same time, we are reminded of the shortness of our own lives.
Preschooler Corey’s beloved Grandma had died. He often talked about his Grandma and all the wonderful things she had done with his Grandpa when picked him up from school in the small Iowa town where he lived. And grandpa said: She has gone to heaven. One day, someone else picked Corey up from school. The next day when Grandpa came for him again, he asked, “Where were you yesterday, Grandpa?” “I went to Nebraska, to the grave, to visit Grandma,” he replied. Corey’s response was swift, “Grandpa, I didn’t know heaven is in Nebraska!” When we die, we go to heaven. Corey had learned this.
Today’s Scripture texts expound for us this message of hope.
“I will not reject anyone,” Jesus says in the gospel about those who come to him. Plus, those who look to him, who “see” him and believe in him, already have eternal life in the present. Then in the end, on the last day, he will raise them up and will unite them with himself completely.
We believe that what the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading announced for the end of time will come true for us in death: the veil that veils all peoples, that is woven over all nations, will be removed. We will be able to see clearly: our own shortcomings and faults, but also our loving and merciful God who receives us into his arms and wipes away all tears from our faces. At first, the confrontation with our own shadow side is painful. This is what the Church’s teaching calls purgatory. It entails purification
Therefore, it is good to pray for our deceased, especially also at the Eucharist.In a verse omitted in today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks about a great feast of rich food and choice vines that, in the end, God will prepare for us. We believe that in the Eucharist we already have an initial share in this feast. The Eucharist is for us a foretaste of this heavenly banquet.
On a tombstone, I once read this sentence: “Remember me as you pass by. As you are now so once was I. As I am now, one day you’ll be. So stop and say a prayer for me.” Visitors at the cemetery are invited to pray for the deceased, that they may soon reach their true home, heaven.
At the same time, visitors are reminded that their earthly life won’t last forever: “As you are now so once was I. As I am now, one day you’ll be.” There is so much we can marvel about when we look at our human life. We only need to think of the miracle of our body with all the functions it can perform and especially also of our brain!
On the other hand, our human life, all earthly life, is transient. The great temptation for us is to cling to this human life and think that it needs to fulfill all our wishes and desires. St. Paul wrote Christ “will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified Body.” While our physical body is aging and our physical health and strength will eventually decline, we don’t have to be sad.
We know that a greater and fuller life, our true home, awaits us in heaven.
Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, we may trust that our deceased are with God. At the same time, we are reminded today of the shortness of our own lives.
It would be a good idea to spend some time today remembering our deceased family members, brother monks, parishioners, oblates, friends and acquaintances. It is good to go to the cemetery and visit some of their graves. We believe, trusting in God’s mercy, that they are already close to God. Certainly, we must pray for them that God may take them to himself.
On the other hand, we may ask them, because of their nearness to God, for their intercession, that we may become able to accept the unavoidable limitations and the transience of our earthly life, which we eventually will lose.
If we live with the awareness that one day we will die, if we keep death before our eyes daily, as St. Benedict suggests, we can live to the fullest every day. Then little Corey’s comment will come true for us: Heaven [a foretaste of heaven] is possible in the present, here in Nebraska.
And we live in hope, in the expectation of, and in readiness for God’s boundless love, peace and joy that we, like so many who have gone before us, will experience one day in fullness in heaven.
AMEN.
~ Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB