Mom's Memorial Mass
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA
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Death
is not the end. We know this. Death is not the end, and we know this
b/c Christ died to defeat death. He died on the Cross to put an end
to sin and death, to create in us a hope for the resurrection and
life eternal. Death cannot be the end b/c “hope does not
disappoint,” hope in, trust in the promises of Christ cannot fail.
And we know this b/c Christ himself prays, “Father, those whom you
gave me are your gift to me.” We are Christ's, and again he prays,
“I wish that where I am they also may be with me. . .” And we are
here, where he is, in the Body, giving thanks for his passion and
death, and hoping in our resurrection when Defeated Death comes to
take his best, last shot. Death is not the end; it cannot be the end
b/c we – each one of us – b/c we are bought, paid for, and
delivered into the possession of, the family of God, our Father. We
are His adopted sons and adopted daughters, reborn in baptism,
confirmed in the Spirit, and joined into the Body through his body
and blood. If dying is not the end, then why does the death of a
mother, a father, a child, why does it hurt so much? If dying is not the end, then what do the
dead do for us, for those left behind?
The
dead bear witness to our enduring hope. If we open our hearts and
minds to the fleeting nature of our earthly existence; if we
acknowledge our fragility in this fallen world; and if we have
surrendered ourselves to the cross of Christ, following him in all
things, then the dead minister to us in their absence from our lives;
that is, by not being with us still, they bring us back to a pillar
of our faith – the enduring hope of the resurrection and all that
that hope requires of us while we still live. The dead, in the
hardest possible way, remind us that our lives are given to us –
not earned, not borrowed but freely given. They remind us – by
their bold absence – that our promised eternal lives are gifts as
well. Never earned, never merited by own hands, but freely given,
freely gifted. In their silence, they remind us that our hope must be
lived – daily, hourly – until we come face-to-face with Christ
himself for judgment. The ministry of the dead is remembrance. Even
as we remember those who have died, they tend to our desire to forget
who we are made to be, who we are re-made to be in Christ Jesus. Even
as sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then are we loved now
that we are justified by his death and resurrection?
How
do we hope in the face of death? How do we go on? Jesus prays to the
Father, “I made known to them your name, and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
We know His name. And we know that the Father's love for His Son is
with us, and that Christ is in us. The hope that cannot disappoint is
our good habit of living knowing that – as we follow Christ –
death in the world is as fleeting as life in the world, a passing
through onto the resurrection of the body and life eternal. But even
with hope, the death of a mother, a father, a child, death hurts
those left behind. Perhaps part of that hurting is the ministry of
the dead, their traumatic way of bringing us back to clarity and
commitment; their way of pushing hope back into our lives when we
have chosen despair. If all of this is true, then to mourn, to grieve
is to welcome and nurture hope – as painful as it is. And those who
mourn are blessed b/c their dead minister to them with the hope that
only Christ can promise and deliver. Death is not the end. Death is
defeated. But all of us – each one of us – will be left behind.
And our faith in Christ will travel with us. Then one day, it will
be our turn – through our bold absence – to minister to the living,
to pray for those still on the Way.
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