Now, mine is, admittedly, a rather ignominious fame, I must admit, for it feeds off a fascination with the supernatural and with death, drawn from and, for the History Channel at least, best incarnated in Halloween
For Halloween is the opening of what since the fifteenth century has been referred to as Allhallowtide, the triduum of All Hallows Eve, All Hallow’s Day, and All Souls Day.
In Mexico these days are commemorated with the public holiday of Día de Muertos, as families erect ofrendas altars in their homes in commmeoration of and intercession for their beloved dead.
But even in secular cultures and networks throughout the world, these are, truly, the days of the dead…replete with Halloween marathons of deadly horrors. They play all the scariest horror movies, from The Shining to Freddy on Elm Street.
Why do we get such a thrill from being terrified by such horror genres? I turn to Stephen King in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, who writes: “We take refuge in make-believe terrors so the real ones don’t overwhelm us, freezing us in place and making it impossible for us to function in our day-to-day lives. We go into the darkness of a movie theater hoping to dream badly, because the world of our normal lives looks ever so much better when the bad dream ends.
“And then the end of the movie comes. The last “saucer has been shot down by Hugh Marlowe’s secret weapon, an ultrasonic gun that interrupts the electromagnetic drive of the flying saucers, or some sort of similar agreeable foolishness. Loudspeakers blare from every Washington street corner, seemingly: “The present danger . . . is over. The present danger . . . is over. The present danger is over…[And] for a moment—just for a moment—the paradoxical trick has worked. We have taken horror in hand and used it to destroy itself….
Think of the frightened little kids, screaming their way through a Frankenstein movie, who emerging from the theatre have conquered the monster and the witch who hides in the closet and even the bully who awaits them next recess. They have looked into the face of horror and emerged into the clear sunlight of invincibility.
So Halloween is all about demons and devils and death….about all that goes bump in the night…But most of all it’s about our fear of death’s unwillingness to negotiate with us, its inevitability and its threat of the cold black darkness which awaits.
Which is why All Hallows Eve makes such a great prelude to the proclamation of the Gospel! For along with all the fear and superstition and mythology of boogey-men in the night is the popular cultural prejudice, deeply held even among un-believers, that Catholics do death better than almost anyone else.
I’m reminded of the comment of a not overly-devout Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the slain president, who faced the terrible prospect of attending the Funeral of her assassinated brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy, in 1968. As she ascended the steps of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral with the mourners, Arthur Schlesinger took her arm and she declared in a stage whisper: “These Catholics really know how to do death.”
A more recent story. Father Busch recently told me about how he was recently called to the hospital in the middle of the night because someone was dying. He entered the room, introduced himself, and quickly found out that neither the dying person nor any other member of the family was Catholic. So, he gently inquired why they called for a Catholic Priest. “Well,” the wife replied, “whenever someone is dying in the movies they call for a priest, so we figured that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
So what does the American culture believe about death? A quick insight might come from two movie clips, both from the 1983 movie Terms of Endearment, which includes two great death scenes, the first with Deborah Winger and the second with the inimitable Shirley MacLaine.
In the first scene with Deborah Winger, her children tearfully bid her goodbye. I dare you to watch that scene on youtube without crying. But what does it tell us that death is all about? About saying goodbye and loving the people you love until your last breath. It’a about looking back, because there’s not much in front of you but fond memories.
And then there’s the scene in which the curmudgeonly character played by Shirley MacLaine dies. It is both humorous and touching, and it ends with her recalling the joy of her life, softly saying: “I was in a place. I had a daughter. And I was loved.”
Her words tell us that the common way of facing death is to speak in the past tense. It’s about remembering, in the words of Simon of Garfunkel:
“Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.”
The American way of death is, therefore, caught up in the notion of “memorialization,” remembering yesterday, until the memories fade. Remembering.
Now remembering is not bad. In fact, it is healthy. I spent several hours the day after my mother’s death putting together that video of just such times to play in the background at my mother’s wake. Remembering is good.
But for Catholics (we who do death so well) it’s not just or even primarily about looking back, but looking ahead. Having stood by the deathbed of hundreds of folks for almost forty years as a priest, and having just buried my mother two weeks ago, it’s a question pretty close to my heart: What’s death about?
And the Church has received from her Lord three simple answers which the world always has and probably always will find hard to understand.
1. Death is about leaving
2. Death is about arriving
3. Death does not end relationship….
First, Death is about leaving...now and at the hour of our death....The hour of our death. What is it like and what is it all about? In other words, what is death going to be like?
From the first centuries of her life the Church has seen death as a Transitus or passage from this world to Christ. Thus the Liturgy of Christian dying is set in front of a door with the saints of the Church militant gathered around you on this side. And the heavenly hosts ready to greet you on the other.
Listen to the prayers for the Commendation of the Dying and te prayers for immediately after death.
"I commend you, my dear sister, to almighty God, and entrust you to your Creator. May you return to him who formed you from the dust of the earth. May holy Mary, the angels, and all the saints come to meet you as you go forth from this life. May Christ who was crucified for you bring you freedom and peace. May Christ who died for you admit you into his garden of paradise. May Christ, the true Shepherd, acknowledge you as one of his flock. May you see the Redeemer face to face, and enjoy the vision of God for ever.
'Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you, go forth, faithful Christian. May you live in peace this day, may your home be with God, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with Joseph, and all the angels and saints."
Indeed, we embraced this idea of death as Transitus when we buried my mother two weeks ago to the strains of two ancient hymns: the Sancti Dei. And the In paradisum. This Transitus, this passing through a door from this life to the next, is best understood when seen as a participation in the Paschal suffering, death and resurrection of the same Christ to whom we are journeying. For our death is a participation in his Paschal dying. Our suffering is joined to his blessed passion as with Christ we commend our spirit to God and with our final breath offer all that we are and have been as an offering to him. I remember years ago witnessing the death of a good priest who experienced his death as nothing less than the final and definitive participation of the offering of your sacrifice and mine to God the Father Almighty.
While the Christian sees the moment of death as an imitation of the perfect sacrifice offered by his Lord upon the cross, a final kenotic self-offering, a trustful falling into the arms of God, the culture in which we live has an often conflicting vision characterized by the struggle for control to the end!
We see this so starkly in the attitudes of those who would seek only to celebrate what has gone before and are paralyzed in the face of death. Just as the fear of death and of dying has driven the “assisted suicide” movement. As Pope francis reminds us:
“If death is seen as the end of everything, death frightens us, it terrifies us, it becomes a threat that shatters every dream, every promise, it severs every relationship and interrupts every journey. This happens when we consider our lives as a span of time between two poles: birth and death; when we fail to believe in a horizon that extends beyond that of the present life; when we live as though God did not exist.
“Jesus’ invitation to be ever ready, watchful, knowing that life in this world is given to us also in order to prepare us for the afterlife, for life with the heavenly Father. And for this there is a sure path: preparing oneself well for death, staying close to Jesus.”
So death is about leaving, but is is also about arriving; and there is a strange tension which runs through the prayers of Roman Catholic Funeral Liturgy which is analogous to the the already, but not yet of Roman Catholic Eschatology.
Here, by way of example, are two prayers from the Order of Christian Funerals:
"O God, in whose presence the dead are alive
and in whom your Saints rejoice full of happiness,
grant our supplication, that your servant John,
for whom the fleeting light of this world shines no more, may enjoy the comfort of your light for all eternity. "
Free your servant John, we pray, O Lord,
from every bond of sin, that he, who in this world
was found worthy to be conformed to Christ,
may be raised to the glory of the resurrection
and draw the breath of new life among your Saints. "
OK, so which is it? Does it mean that the dead person has arrived at the beatific vision or that he is in a holding room, a place of purification or has he been immediately consigned to the everlasting fires of hell?
Well, yes. It means both. For, admittedly, there are some precisions about about life after death which are obscured by the fact that it takes place beyond the constraints of time and space and and is not fully known by we who still perceive through a glass darkly. So, with that admitted incapacity, let me place before you three thoughts of what’s on the other side of that door.
First, our patron was quite clear about the other side of the door: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; but what we shall later be has not yet come to light.” (1 John 3:2) Much as we will never know the day nor the hour, we will never know the details of what God has in store for us.
Second, for the just, there is the assurance that on the other side of the door we call death, the angels wait to lead us into the paradise, the martyrs stand ready to welcome us and all the saints prepare to lead us home to the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no need of sun or moon, for the light of God’s glory illumines every soul.
For, in the words of our beloved Pope emeritus: “those who commit themselves to live like him are freed from the fear of death, no longer showing the sarcastic smile of an enemy but offering the friendly face of a "sister," as St. Francis wrote in the "Canticle of Creatures." In this way, God can also be blessed for it: "Praise be to you, my Lord, for our Sister Bodily Death." We must not fear the death of the body, faith reminds us, as it is a dream from which we will awake one day.
And third thing we know about death, is that it will lead to our judgement.
I have always admired the medieval tradition of painting the Last Judgement on the back wall of every Church, above the door which people must use to return to their daily lives. There, invariably, the dead rise from their graves and are caught up in the air to be judged by Christ, reigning gloriously from a nimbus of light held aloft by angelic hosts.
On his right, the Lord gathers the sheep, who have kept his commandment to love others as he has loved them. They are the ones who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and are now called to the Supper of the Lamb!
But on his left, are those who have not loved, those who have chosen the way of perdition and now face what the Book of Revelation calls the "second death" (cf. 20:14-15; 21:8).
The wondrously perverse medieval mind depicts their tortures as commensurate with their sin. And while it is salutary to our souls to keep such gross reminders ever before our wandering eyes, one must admit that no fire nor pincer nor other diabolic torture could ever approach the horror of being apart from the love of God…in utter aloneness, cold darkness and fear. Or, in the awful words of Pope Benedict:
“…he who dies in mortal sin, without repentance, locked in prideful rejection of God's love, excludes himself from the Kingdom of life.”
Which is what brings us to the third thing which the Church teaches about death:
That Death does not end our relationships. If someone gets up and preaches a long eulogy at my Funeral, please throw something at them.
When I die, our relationship will continue. Indeed, the commandment to love and honor my mother and my father and my grandparents continues to bind me to those who die. And as clearly as it bound me as a good son to go visit them in the nursing home and the hospital, it binds me still to pray for them.
For years now, on Memorial Day and all Souls Day, I go to a florist not far from Saint John’s Cemetery in Worcester and purchase twenty-four white roses. Over the next couple hours I then visit all of my relatives in Saint John’s Cemetery, put a flower on their grave, sing the In paradisum and pray for them.
This morning it was a terrible beauty to pray at the grave of my mom and dad just as I prayed for them at the Altar this morning, and will once again on November 19th, April 19th and October 19th next year, offering the Holy and Living Sacrifice a month, six months and a year from her death.
In fact, in my calendar, I inscribe the dies natales, the day of birth unto eternal life, of each of my parents, grandparents and godparents, so that I can offer Mass for them on those days. Why? So that God will forgive whatever sins they may have committed and lead them home to himself. Or, as we prayed at my mother’s funeral:
O God, who alone are able to give life after death, free your servant Marguerite Mary from all sins, that she, who believed in the Resurrection of your Christ, may, when the day of resurrection comes, be united with you in glory.
Free your servant from her sins! Kyrie eleison! That is the prayer and the work we owe to the dead. For, as Saint Augustine once preached:
"…there is no doubt that the dead are helped by the prayers of the Holy Church, by the saving sacrifice, and by alms dispensed for their souls; these things are done that they may be more mercifully dealt with by the Lord than their sins deserve. The whole Church observes the custom handed down by our fathers: that those who died within the fellowship of Christ’s body and blood should be prayed for when they are commemorated in their own place at the holy sacrifice, and that we should be reminded that this sacrifice is offered for them as well.… people whose love for their dead is spiritual as well as physical should pay much greater, more careful and more earnest attention to those things – sacrifices, prayers, and almsgiving – which can assist those who though their bodies may be dead, to be alive in the spirit."
That’s why we pray in the Roman Canon: Remember also, Lord, your servants James and Marguerite, who have gone before us with the sign of faith and rest in the sleep of peace. Grant them, O Lord, we pray, and all who sleep in Christ, a place of refreshment, light and peace
But this is not what most of the world believes. They seek not a Funeral Mass, a holy and living sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, but a “Celebration of Life” in which Memorializes, looks back and rejoices in what has been, with little mention of what will be.
Contrast that reality with the profoundly Catholic moment when we learned by the tolling of a bell that beloved Pope John Paul II has died. Thousands of people, in Piazza san Pietro and around the world stopped, bowed their heads and prayed, as the bell tolled through electronic devices throughout the world. It was a moment of hope and of promise, as our beloved Pope returned to the Father’s house.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
May their souls and the souls of all he faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
For years now, on Memorial Day and all Souls Day, I go to a florist not far from Saint John’s Cemetery in Worcester and purchase twenty-four white roses. Over the next couple hours I then visit all of my relatives in Saint John’s Cemetery, put a flower on their grave, sing the In paradisum and pray for them.
This morning it was a terrible beauty to pray at the grave of my mom and dad just as I prayed for them at the Altar this morning, and will once again on November 19th, April 19th and October 19th next year, offering the Holy and Living Sacrifice a month, six months and a year from her death.
In fact, in my calendar, I inscribe the dies natales, the day of birth unto eternal life, of each of my parents, grandparents and godparents, so that I can offer Mass for them on those days. Why? So that God will forgive whatever sins they may have committed and lead them home to himself. Or, as we prayed at my mother’s funeral:
O God, who alone are able to give life after death, free your servant Marguerite Mary from all sins, that she, who believed in the Resurrection of your Christ, may, when the day of resurrection comes, be united with you in glory.
Free your servant from her sins! Kyrie eleison! That is the prayer and the work we owe to the dead. For, as Saint Augustine once preached:
"…there is no doubt that the dead are helped by the prayers of the Holy Church, by the saving sacrifice, and by alms dispensed for their souls; these things are done that they may be more mercifully dealt with by the Lord than their sins deserve. The whole Church observes the custom handed down by our fathers: that those who died within the fellowship of Christ’s body and blood should be prayed for when they are commemorated in their own place at the holy sacrifice, and that we should be reminded that this sacrifice is offered for them as well.… people whose love for their dead is spiritual as well as physical should pay much greater, more careful and more earnest attention to those things – sacrifices, prayers, and almsgiving – which can assist those who though their bodies may be dead, to be alive in the spirit."
That’s why we pray in the Roman Canon: Remember also, Lord, your servants James and Marguerite, who have gone before us with the sign of faith and rest in the sleep of peace. Grant them, O Lord, we pray, and all who sleep in Christ, a place of refreshment, light and peace
But this is not what most of the world believes. They seek not a Funeral Mass, a holy and living sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, but a “Celebration of Life” in which Memorializes, looks back and rejoices in what has been, with little mention of what will be.
Contrast that reality with the profoundly Catholic moment when we learned by the tolling of a bell that beloved Pope John Paul II has died. Thousands of people, in Piazza san Pietro and around the world stopped, bowed their heads and prayed, as the bell tolled through electronic devices throughout the world. It was a moment of hope and of promise, as our beloved Pope returned to the Father’s house.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
May their souls and the souls of all he faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
