All Souls Day
November 2, 2015

     “Are you not aware that you who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6).

     I have a piece of paper, a bit dog-eared and worse for wear, that states that, on the 30th day of March in the year 1941, at the Church of the Immaculate over on 18th Avenue and Marion Street, I received the sacrament of Baptism.  On that happy day, quite unbeknownst to me, of course, I became part of the Church – this great family of faith where I have come to know Jesus Christ and to experience his life in more ways than I can count.  But it’s not only his life I’ve experienced because, as St. Paul put it so clearly in the Letter to the Romans, “…you who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”  So, life and death.  In all the intervening years since my baptism, life and death have been my story just as they have yours.

     This close connection of death to life is real even apart from our Christian perspective, of course, for isn’t it one of life’s more inescapable and perplexing mysteries that we begin to die on the very day we are born?  We are born from pain into pain (our mothers’ into our own), born from struggle into struggle.  That may sound a bit pessimistic or fatalistic, but it is true.  And all through our lives, no matter how close we may come to joy or even to ecstasy, we are always only steps away from sadness, aren’t we?

     People without faith in Jesus Christ can find in such realities the foundation for a deep cynicism toward life and a fatalism about death.  But it is not that way with us.  We who have been blessed with Christian faith are able to view life’s contradictions, life’s most troubling mysteries, in a way others cannot.  We are able to look at the puzzling interplay between sadness and joy, between pain and peace, between death and life, and see there no more and no less than what happened to Jesus from the very moment he embraced this world of ours and made it his own.  We need think only of his birth at Bethlehem: the glorious song of the angels was heard in a foul-smelling shelter for animals; and the visit of the Magi was counter-pointed by the slaughter of innocent children.  His joyous baptism, when God’s voice rang out and the Holy Spirit descended, was quickly followed by another voice, the dread voice of Satan, and by the most harrowing temptations.  And Jesus’ announcing of Good News to the poor, and his healings of the blind, the deaf, the lame, and his raising of the dead to life -- all these led, paradoxically, to his death.

     Only on Easter morning did all this get resolved, or should I say reversed? – this pattern of life inextricably linked to death, life always getting trumped by death. Only on Easter morning did life get the last word!  And so will it be at our own death, our own Easter. Death will lose its sting and will be swallowed up by victory, as St. Paul wrote so long ago. 

     That is what tonight’s liturgy is all about: helping us face the reality of death (the death of our loved ones as well as our own death) and giving us a glimpse of the triumph of life over death.

     The scriptures we heard pointed the way with beautifully poetic images: a veil being lifted, tears being wiped away, waters springing forth unto life, a bride and bridegroom on their wedding day.  Do these images sound anything like the death you know?  Perhaps not. But the scriptures go on teasing our imaginations with their talk of new heavens and new earth, dwelling places beyond number in God’s house, the end of all mourning, crying out, or pain of any kind.

     And the scriptures are not alone.  They are strongly supported by the liturgy of All Souls: by the ancient ritual of the Mass, through which we remember and make present the death of Jesus who, on the night before he died, took bread and broke it, took wine and blessed it, telling his friends that whenever they did this they would be receiving his Body broken for them and his Blood poured out for them. Bread and wine: symbols eloquent enough to speak Jesus’ self-surrender and powerful enough to bear his very presence.

     And, my friends, tonight’s surpassingly beautiful music of Maurice Durufle makes that presence even more real.  Durufle’s music is a bold statement of faith. It is a homily on death.  The haunting but comforting cadences of the plainsong, the sometimes uncertain, other times exultant harmonies, soaring melodies, insistent rhythms – all these resonate with our own struggles and longings to affirm our faith in the victory of life even when death seems to have the last word.

     There is, at times, an urgency about the music and a certain terror in the timeworn texts that get our attention with their images of impending doom.  But the urgency gives way to calm, dread to resignation, and the glorious hosannas of the Sanctus pierce the heavens and open our eyes to Glory itself, and to the most peaceful, penetrating light.

     In the end, death emerges as the way, the only way to the One who calls Himself the Way, and the Truth, and the Life!

     Enough words!  Let us continue our prayer, remembering with wistfulness, yes, but with love and gratitude -- all who have died.  And let us allow the sacred rituals of our faith which bring us face-to-face with the triumph of Christ over death, to lift our hearts and to anoint our spirits.

     Father Michael G. Ryan