I AM WHAT HE WAS, AND WHAT HE IS, I SHALL BE

A MESSAGE FOR THE LAST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

At the funeral of a certain nobleman St. Sylvester, whose feastday is today, perceived in an open grave the disfigured corpse of one of his kinsmen who had been very good-looking in his lifetime, and he said to himself, “I am what he was, and what he is I shall be.”

It is never with pleasure that we contemplate the inescapable fact that one day we will be dead.  But if there’s any day of the year that we should do so, it is today, the very last Sunday after Pentecost, the last of the liturgical year.  Until now during this month of November we have been remembering all our loved ones who have gone before us.  Today it is time for us to remember that one day we will join them.

We cannot escape death no matter how much money we have, no matter how clever our doctors are, no matter how healthy a lifestyle we lead.  One day, and it’s getting closer, our hearts will stop beating and our brains will cease to function. We don’t know how it will happen, nor have we seen with our eyes what lies beyond, and these unknown factors makes many of us fear the hour of our death.  As Catholics though, we know by our faith that death is not the end.  Something far greater, and certainly far longer, lies beyond, and if we manage to persevere in grace until our death, that passing into the beyond will signify the transition from a temporary vale of tears into an eternity of perfect happiness.  This is our consolation in our thoughts of death.

We are incapable of seeing past the veil that separates the living from the dead.  Our five senses cannot detect the reality of what lies beyond, and for this reason we experience the fear of the unknown.  But our faith in God must transcend the knowledge our senses provide us.  Our senses can often deceive us, but God can never deceive nor be deceived.  He has told us through the words of his divine Son what we must expect to find once our eyes close in death and we pass on beyond that veil of separation. 

There exists, with just as much reality as the life we know now, another life that is eternal and supremely joyful.  It is a life that is defined, in a sense, by the absence of sorrow and suffering, a life where God “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”  Indeed, heaven is the destination we strive for because it alone makes sense of all the sorrow and crying and pain we endure here on earth.  We bear our earthly sorrows with patience and hope, knowing that it is only in embracing our crosses that we may merit that heavenly bliss.

So whatever we may be suffering now, let’s think about death in a more positive sense than we are accustomed, acknowledging it for what it is, the beautiful Gate of Heaven.