In Light of Eternity

“Ugh! That road isn’t very safe at all! You know what they used to call it? The road of death!”

This is how a parishioner here in the Middle East replied to me when I causally mentioned that I needed to drive to a town about an hour away. I reassured her that the road was quite safe now.  In fact, the government had designated it a “safety corridor” for some 60 kilometers (although I would drive on it for 65). So I was sure that everything would be fine.

She was little consoled by my observation, and rightfully so.  The labeling of a highway as a “safety corridor” does little if the drivers choose to ignore it, if the government refuses to paint lane markings, and if construction companies decide to give no advance warning of the steel and concrete barricades which close off entire lanes. Indeed, this is precisely what happens so much so that a fellow priest used to jokingly sing as he got into the car “We drive by faith, and not by sight.” In other words, knowing that something is dangerous and risky does us little good if it does not lead to concrete changes in the way we drive.

Life and Death

The same could be said about life in general. In a certain sense, life is the most dangerous and risky endeavor there is. All lives end with death: being alive is the only condition that has 100% mortality rate.

I recall a note in a Biblical commentary I read years ago.  The commentator had asked a friend what the death rate was in his town.  The friend replied saying something like, ‘One death per person, and people are dying who have never died before.’

But, knowing that life will end in death, and that eternity depends on how we live now, does us little good if that knowledge isn’t translated into concrete action.

Leo Tolstoy begins his novel “Anna Karenina” with the famous line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same could be said of deaths and dying. There is only one happy death: the one that sees a person enter heaven and everlasting happiness. This is why we pray asking for the grace of a “happy death,” without any further specification.

However, an unhappy death is different for each person. Just like an unhappy family, the end result is the same: unhappiness. Yet, the reasons for that unhappiness are as many and as varied as the people themselves: serious sins, neglected families, broken marriages, and the like. Each unhappy death has its own story of sadness.

The Loss is Still Felt

Not to be morbid, but this month has seen quite a few deaths of people close or known to me: my own paternal grandfather, the mother of a contemplative sister friend, the wife of a spiritual directee, and a good friend from home. Reflecting on these experiences, I saw the old adage confirmed: talis vita, finis ita. Of such a life, the end is the same, or, as one lives, so one dies.

Visiting my good friend in the hospital after her fall (she was an elderly widow with nine children), she woke up when we spoke to her and greeted us with a mumbled “Hail Mary, full of grace. . .” and her rosary grasped in her hand. She had received the anointing of the sick and was prepared for her death. It fell to her family (and to me, since I presided the funeral) to make sense of all the different emotions that we were left with.

It isn’t easy, and in many cases the loss is felt forever. In “A Grief Observed,” C. S. Lewis expresses his feelings in a very dense and beautiful paragraph as he says to his dead wife:

“Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared. I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one.”

It certainly is not easy.  The best I could think of to say, I tried to say in the homily at the funeral Mass. I was asked to make sure it was available online, so here it is.

My Homily

At the death of someone near to us, there’s always a range of emotions (and with nine children here present, I imagine that we have the entire range of them!). There is sadness, because someone dear has left us; this is only natural, and even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, although He knew He would raise him from the dead. Sometimes people are joyful, and that’s understandable as well: they recognize, as Saint Paul did, that their loved one “ran the race, and competed well.” Sometimes people are frustrated: there are so many things that need to be planned and organized, so many details to be attended to, that it’s hard to keep everything organized and everyone happy. Lastly, some people are even angry: perhaps at themselves, or at others.

I don’t think any of these emotions are wrong; they just are. The question is: what do we do with them? How do we make sense of all these feelings and emotions?

Fortunately, the Gospel we just heard gives us the key. We heard Jesus say, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life.” What God the Father wants, what He desires for everyone, is that everyone gets to heaven with Him. Everything that God does or permits, He does or permits for that reason alone. He does these things in light of eternity.

See Everything in Light of Eternity

It is this that gives us the proper perspective: we need to see everything in light of eternity, as God does. We need to think, “What is this thing, this problem, this disagreement, in light of forever?” As Saint John of the Cross said, “At the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” (Again.) “At the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” At the evening of Virginia’s life, when everything is said and done, we can say, simply, “She loved us, and we loved her.”

The best way to live in light of eternity, especially in these difficult moments, is to be thankful for the gift of Virginia. All of us are here because Virginia touched our lives in some way. For some of you, it was through the gift of life: children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren!

We can think, too, of all those who are married to her children or grandchildren: what a gift you have received from her as well! There are her friends here … and so many more! The list goes on and on. It’s this love that remains in eternity, beyond the evening of this life into the dawn of eternity.

So today, as we gather to thank God for Virginia, we pray for her, that she might live in eternity in the love of God, and that we, too, might pass, after the evening of this life, to join her in our heavenly homeland.

Walk by Faith

Talis vita, finis ita: to live each day in light of eternity, being thankful for the gifts we’ve received, sorrowful for the sins and errors we’ve committed, and hopeful that the future will be filled with God’s grace and love. After all, we walk by faith, not by sight.