Too often, we forget about our deceased. Heck, we start to forget about people when they turn old, even before they die. How many lonely souls sit in nursing homes these days with no one coming to visit them. How often do older people or their "friends" consider assisted suicide so they can leave this world because so often, our last years of our life, instead of being filled with gratitude and thankfulness, are often filled with loneliness and sorrow ? Our society, which values staying and looking young, places no value on the elderly, who have so much wisdom and life experience to offer.
We do not think of the dead because we do not think of the afterlife. We only focus on what is around us. We focus on this world alone. We are so focused on the natural, we forget the supernatural. We are so focused on life, we don't, as Saint Benedict says, "keep death daily before (our) eyes". We focus on appearance, we forget or do not notice what is hidden.
We need days like today to remind us of the heavenly dimension of the Church.
Yet, I experienced today even in the homily I heard, a tendency to downplay that transcendent dimension somewhat. The priest spoke about the "saints around us" and how we are all called to be "saints". While there is nothing wrong in and of itself mentioning that, the focus of today's celebration really should be the Saints in Heaven; how they lived, what we can learn from them, and how they can intercede for us, and how we should seek their intercession.
Can we not look to heaven for one day out of the year? Do we have to keep our eyes on this present world all the time?
I really feel in the Church we need to do a better job of opening our eyes to the vertical dimension; to God, to heaven, to the Saints. We have become, in a word, flat, because we are focused on the horizontal. Our liturgies have become flat, our preaching has become flat, and as a result, our lives have become flat. We have stopped trying to be Catholic and tried to be more like other churches who only speak of and focus on the present life. I think, rather, we need to be more Catholic, to distinguish ourselves from those other churches, like that of preachers like Joel Osteen, who preach so often on what God can do for us in this life, but never ever talk about the afterlife. Their churches, the sizes of basketball arenas, are filled every Sunday, while Catholic churches sit half empty every week.
You may say, well, is not his church thriving by focusing on this life, and being relevant? Should the Catholic Church not do the same? Here is what I would say to that. I believe a lot of Joel's and others' success is from ex-Catholics who left a Church that was trying to be the like world around it, which focused on the horizontal, on this life only. In trying to be something it was not, priests and lay ministers in the Church accommodated to what the focus of the contemporary world was; social justice, the environment, pop psychology and sociology, and it became no different from the world. It became boring and irrelevant. Not surprisingly, people felt they were not getting anything from it, they decided it was not necessary to go anymore, and so they stopped practicing their Faith
Yet, there was still a hole. They filled it by going to other churches who did speak of salvation, of the need to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but afterwards, spoke only of this life with no more talk of death, judgment, heaven, purgatory, or hell. They got a quick world on salvation, but then, since their salvation is "guaranteed", they went right back to focusing on the things of this world, along with the rest of society.
As a result of all this, so few today think much of the afterlife. We don't think about death, and when we do not think about death, we forget about those who are seemingly close to it, the elderly, as well as those who have already died.
The Church, today and tomorrow especially, cries about this injustice and says "Do not forget your dead!"
I remember with fondness my maternal grandfather who visited my grandmother every day after she was put in the nursing home with Alzheimer's. It was very difficult for him to carry on a conversation with her because of her Alzheimer's. Yet despite this, he went every morning, and stayed until later in the day, or the end of it, depending if my Mom could come and relieve him or not (which she usually did). What a devotion and example of love he was for me.
I lived with him for several years, and sometimes, would take him to Church. I remember one time we went to the Easter Vigil, and they had all the lights out, except for the candles everyone was holding. He was deaf, and thought he had to talk loud for everyone to hear him lol. He shouted out "They are going to burn the place down!" People looked at us. It was a little embarrassing, but I was still so glad he was with me.
I thought of him today as a few rows behind me at Mass, another older couple came in a few minutes before Mass started and were talking loudly. I felt a little annoyed, as I was trying to prepare myself quietly for Mass. However, something deeper came over me, and I felt that maybe God was speaking to me and others through them, so I said nothing. It turns out they talked about some of the beautiful features of the Shrine; its stained glass windows, the beautiful altar, and a few other things. They were drinking in the beauty of the Shrine, and I believe, in doing so, a little of the beauty of God, and it reminded me to do the same (I have attached a picture of what they were looking at). Why deprive them of that? Why deprive our elderly of the good things we too often deprive them of these days? After all, there is often no one to visit them, often no one to take them to Church, often not enough priests to come and say Mass for them regularly if they cannot travel , and often no one to pray for and with them.
We should take some time over these next few days, and this entire month, to remember and pray for our deceased family and friends. I think of my grandparents and my uncle especially. We should also remember those who we consider to be "close" or "closer" to death, namely our elderly, wherever they might be. We also should think our own impending deaths. It will come to each of us. Are we ready for the afterlife? If we have not been thinking about it much, we are probably not.
Let's change that.
Saint Joseph, patron of the dying, pray for us.
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