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All Souls Day
Our parish has had more than its share of encounters with death this year as we have found ourselves bidding good-bye to three beloved members of our staff. We have been saddened and diminished by these losses and have found ourselves seeking comfort and solace and, to be honest, we have found ourselves asking questions. Our world and our nation have experienced death this past year, too – on a scale that is both chilling and sobering. Iraq and Afghanistan have been both battle ground and burial ground for too many of our youngest and finest, and they continue to be. And, of course, these are not the only places in our world where warfare and violence have taken their grim toll. Far from it. And then there is the terrible toll of the catastrophic typhoons and hurricanes that have swept through places like the Philippines and Indonesia in recent weeks, savage storms that swept away thousands, many of them the poorest of the poor. And our civic community here in Seattle had a brutal encounter with death just two nights ago when a young police officer doing nothing more than selflessly guarding our safety was tragically killed in cold blood, leaving behind a wife and two young children, and an entire police department racked by grief and anger. Where was God in all of this death, we may well find ourselves asking? And it is a fair question – although it admits of no easy answer. In pondering that question myself, I find myself taken by the idea of one thoughtful writer who suggested that perhaps we make a mistake in asking ‘the God question’ the way we always do, and our mistake is rooted in an error about what it means to say that God is all-powerful. “Perhaps,” the writer said, “perhaps in choosing to create, God also chose to limit the divine power in ways we do not understand. In fact, the God embodied in Jesus chose not to be all-powerful: he ‘emptied himself,’ taking on our human condition; he was tortured and crucified, and he hung on the cross in solidarity with all those who suffer, especially those who suffer unjustly.” Not a solution to the problem of death or the problem of evil, certainly, but a tiny window onto it, perhaps. That is what tonight’s liturgy is all about: to give us a tiny window onto death: to bring us close enough to death for it to lose some of it power. Not its devastation or its mystery, but its power. A tall order. The scriptures pointed the way for us with their poetic images of death: a veil being lifted, tears being wiped away, waters springing forth unto life, even 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 the imagination with their talk of new heavens and new earth, dwelling places (“mansions”) 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 tonight: by the ancient ritual of the Mass, through which we remember and re-enact the death of Jesus who both defied death and made friends with it on the night before he died, breaking bread with his friends and pouring out wine in abundance. Bread and wine: symbols eloquent enough to speak his self-surrender and powerful enough to bear his very presence. As we do what we do tonight in Jesus’ memory, his Last Supper words echo across long ages to jog our poor memories: “Do not let your hears be troubled. Have confidence. I have overcome the world.” Added to all this, the surpassingly beautiful music of Maurice Duruflé is a homily on death all its own, and a bold statement of faith. The haunting but comforting cadences of the plainsong, the sometimes uncertain, other times exultant harmonies, the soaring melodies, the 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. At times there is an urgency about the music much as there is about death itself, an urgency that borders on alarm, and the timeworn texts of the Domine Jesu Christe at the Offertory, and later of the Libera Me, can frighten us with images of impending doom and flashes of the day of wrath and bitterness. But the urgency does give way to calm, dread to resignation, and the glorious crescendos 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, the Truth, and the Life! Enough words! Let us continue our prayer, remembering with sadness -- but also with gratitude -- all who have died. And let us allow the sacred rituals of our faith which bring us face-to-face with Christ’s triumph over death, to lift our hearts even as they anoint our troubled spirits. Father Michael G. Ryan |
It is good for us to be together and to pray together on this All Souls Day.
Each of us has had personal encounters with death this past year – a parent, a
spouse, a child, a loved one, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor.