Someone had to get the job done, and that someone had now arrived — it was me!
Do you ever get the feeling that life is passing you by? Oh, when we were young this was not even a question for some of us. Of course, life was not passing us by.
Rather, we envisaged ourselves as challenging life, as we knew it then, to keep up with us. Someone had to get the job done, and that someone had now arrived — it was me! And with the practically limitless energy of youth, we plunged into the task at hand and dealt with it. Or so we thought.
However, there is something about life on this planet that stays pretty much the same, no matter how fast certain aspects of it charge ahead. For example, the internet provides all sorts of resources for communication, and the possibilities seem endless, but we still have problems understanding one another, let alone liking one another.
Just walk through an airport. People, for the most part, are burrowed into their devices and hardly anyone looks at anyone else. And in many places nations themselves are having great difficulty getting along with those nations nearest to them.
It’s an awful task; cleansing the human heart of anger, lust, greed, thirst for vengeance and the like. Even sophisticated advances in technology seem as likely to aggravate these problems as to alleviate them.
Life is moving at a frenetic pace, but in some ways doesn’t seem to be going anywhere new. And those of us who were once young and self-confident are now older and slightly less self-confident.
I would like to be able to say “older and wiser,” but what does wiser mean in these circumstances? Giving up on making the world a better place? Leaving the next steps required for the advancement of humanity entirely in the hands of the next generation? Your turn — and all the best?!
While it’s true that much of the future is already the responsibility of a younger generation, it still doesn’t do to abandon these people to their fate, so to speak.
There’s nothing quite so consoling as an older person who, somehow or other, did not end up embittered by the way life has treated him or her and still retains a sense of humor and hope in God. To know someone ground down in their body but undaunted in spirit is a great encouragement.
Even more so, it is a great gift to know someone who, despite failures and the inevitable disappointments in life, has hope that the Lord has not abandoned his people. We have only to turn to him in humility to learn that this perennial truth remains just that: the truth.
And if our hold on this truth gets a little shaky at times, we have our Blessed Mother Mary to encourage and strengthen us in the ways of faith, hope, and love.
Also, there’s a lot to be said for visiting a cemetery now and again. Especially one with consecrated ground, dedicated to the Lord and to people who did what they could to follow him in this life.
As you may or may not know, the word “cemetery” is derived, from ancient times, from a word meaning a sleeping chamber. Those who are asleep are eventually going to wake up!
St. Paul puts it this way: We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep…For the Lord himself with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first (1Thes 4:13 – 14, 16).
The Lord himself also speaks about his coming in glory and his angels, with a trumpet blast, being sent to gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other (see Mt 24).
The dead remind us that, in the end, we have to let go of everything, even life as we know it on this earth. Little by little, life itself teaches us this truth. We live in the paradox of being called to invest ourselves completely in life and its challenges, and also to let it go at some point, because only the Lord can bring life to its true fulfillment.
Those who have died with Christ now await the sure hope of his resurrection. There is a special peace in these cemetery sleeping chambers.
The dead seem to say to us there:
Give it your all, then give it all away.
Give it your best, but repent for how poorly your best turned out.
Give praise to God for all things and especially for the privilege, renewed daily, of being his disciple.
Serve God in fear and trembling, but be not afraid!
Life is a mystery, but death in Christ is still more mysterious; get used to this!
All who seek to improve man’s life on earth are to be admired; still more admirable are those who allow God to change their hearts for the better. In this lies the hope for earth’s future and the assurance of heavenly reward.
Rest in his mercy and Jesus will be your rest, now and forever.
Die to yourself now so as to live forever with God.
See you at the resurrection!
Maybe this is the result of an overactive imagination. But I find in it such peace that I think I’ll soon return for another visit to pray for the holy souls and to bless them.
That’s one thing an old priest can always do, and should be doing, right to the end.
