The Commemoration of the faithful departed reminds us that we are still
one with those who have gone before us into eternal life, and that death is not
and can never be the end. Since they are alive we still owe them love and
support in Christ’s name, even beyond the grave.
While the readings for today may be chosen from a great variety found
in the Masses for the dead I have
taken the ones mentioned above. This gives us an opportunity to look at the
mystery of death and the new life that Christ has won and promised for all of
us who believe.
The question of
where we go when we die is a question that has puzzled and continues to puzzle
the minds of many. It is a question that brings out the fact that we realize
that this life has to end and all of us no matter how strong we are, no matter
how rich or poor have to die some day. Death has been and will continue to be a
mystery. While we know that we have to die and today with the advancement of
science and technology can delay death by a few days, months or even years in
some cases and can tell how a person may have died, what we will never know,
what will always remain a mystery is why a person must die at a particular
moment in time. The feast of the Commemoration of the faithful departed does
not provide the answer to this question, but informs us that for us as
believers, death is not and can never be the end.
If in the past the
focus of the feast was on praying for the deliverance of the “souls” in
purgatory who were regarded as the “Church suffering” and needed our prayers so
that they could join in heaven the saints and add to the number of the “Church
triumphant”, today the focus is different. This focus is brought out through
the readings suggested for this day.
It
is quite amazing to find a text like the first reading of today in the Old
Testament in which we do not find any clear theology of the resurrection of
dead. During most of the time before Christ, only a vague idea of afterlife is
found: and "abode of the dead" called Sheol, whose inhabitants had
only a shadowy existence. God’s favor or disfavor was understood in terms of
the present life only. However, as hard times and tragedies befell the Jewish
people, ideas of life beyond this life began to emerge. Isaiah saw this as
eternal restoration of the nation where death would be destroyed and the whole
people would live forever. The text comes from within the block of material
known as 'The Isaiah Apocalypse' (Isa 24-27). The view of the future within
these chapters is universal in outlook and speaks of God's power in the cosmic
as well as the earthly realm. An invitation to a feast is also issued in the
first reading from Isaiah. Those who
will heed the call are invited to the mountain of the Lord, Zion. Here is the choicest of food and drink
which is served in abundance. It is an invitation to feast and rejoice and an
assurance that all tears will be wiped away and the people who come will be
accepted. All reproach will be removed and God will reveal himself as a God who
saves. This salvation will be shown in the most tangible of ways in that death
itself will be destroyed.
The Gospel text is
addressed to all those who accept the message of Jesus unlike those in Chorazin
and Bethsaida. To
understand it fully, two points must be kept in mind. The first is that it is
placed by Matthew after three “negative” passages which begin at 11:2. These
are the responses of Jesus to the disciples of John the Baptist to their
question whether Jesus was the Messiah, the exasperation with the crowd who do
not recognize John nor Jesus, and the denunciation of the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. Indeed, this
entire section of Matthew’s Gospel seems to lean on a sense of apparent
“failure” on the part of Jesus to measure up to the expectations that all
around him had in terms of what a “Messiah” would look like or act like. The
second point is that this text is clearly a Matthean composition and is made of
three elements. This first two of these are found in Luke but in different
contexts and the third is exclusive to Matthew. In Matthew the audience is
clearly the crowds and so the words of Jesus here are meant for all. The
passage appearing as it does in this context seeks to state that despite so
much of doubt and negativity, that despite so much of blindness and closed
attitudes, there is hope. Despite the fact that Jesus’ message has
been questioned by John the Baptist, rejected by many and especially the wise
and understanding and not paid heed to by the cities, yet the invitation and
message will find acceptance among the open and receptive of which there are
still some left. There is no arbitrariness in this. Rather, it is simply true
that for the most part the wise tend to become proud and self-sufficient in
their wisdom and particularly unreceptive regarding the new and the unexpected.
On the other hand the childlike are most often unself-conscious, open,
dependent, and receptive. They are willing to let God work in their lives. They
have not decided in advance how God must act and are willing to let God be God.
They are willing to believe that in Jesus, God has indeed brought salvation
from sin, failure and even death itself. Jesus himself is an example of such
openness, which allowed him to receive everything directly from God. It is his
intimacy with the Father and not his religious genius, which is responsible for
this grace.
Even as we
commemorate the faithful departed we must remember that the readings of today
do not focus on death at all rather they focus on life and life in abundance.
In writing to the Thessalonians Paul makes clear that we cannot behave as a
people who have no hope. Our grief has to be a controlled grief. It has to be a
grief that has its basis in the hope that all who have died in Christ are sure
to rise with him. After God has spoken in Jesus, death is seen only as
transition from one kind of life to another. In the words of the sixteenth
century poet John Donne: “Death, thou shalt die”.
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