Earth Our Tent! Heaven Our Homeland!!

 (Homily for the Commemoration of All Souls)

          The feast of today reminds us of the communion with the three churches (Triumphant, militant and suffering); while the Triumphant prays for us, we pray for the suffering church. We are in a communion of prayers. The remembrance of the dead will have no meaning without the Resurrection. What we are celebrating today takes its reason and foundation from the resurrection event, the Resurrection of Christ (first fruit from the dead). For as St. Paul vehemently echoed: “if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is without substance and so is your faith” (1Cor. 15:14), and we may add also that our life would have been meaningless, without that event.

          The commemoration of today brings a pertinent truth about human life and existence to our consideration, and that is the fact that we are pilgrims on earth. It is therefore, important we understand that our life is a journey, a journey from birth to death. Biblically, the greatest journey in the Old Testament was the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. But for us our promised land is not on this earth: ours is in Heaven. The journey to the Promised Land in the Old Testament is a symbol of the journey each of us make to God as we go through this life. So between our life and death we are pilgrims on the road to God. For this St. Paul opined that “when the tent that houses us on earth is folded up, there is a house for us from God, not made by human hands but everlasting, in the heavens” (2Cor.5:1), we are living in tent, because we are travelling and intend to move from place to place and the tent is a temporary dwelling, our final destination, abode is in God. St. Augustine comprehended the reality of human existence profoundly well when he affirmed: “you have made us for yourself o Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”.

         The first reading (Jb. 19:1.23-27b) presents the faith of Job on the reality of Resurrection. The choice of this passage is not far-fetched, for as we earlier opined, the belief on the Resurrection serves as the basis for today’s celebration, and in the New Testament Christ’s Resurrection serves the foundation for our hope in the life after death, for through it we were made to understand that death does not have the final word on human existence. Job in his predicament and existential failures, frustration and diminishment expressed hope of beholding God after his earthly misery. Each and every one of us nourishes this hope, and that is why the thought and reality of death should not threaten us. Job in his words affirmed: “I know that my redeemer lives”, and this indeed was his source of hope, and this hope built on the assurance of the Redeemer that lives does not and cannot disappoint us (cf. Rm. 5:5). Christ himself said: “I was dead and look – I am alive for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:18).

          In the Second reading (Rm. 5:5-11) St. Paul tells us that our hope cannot deceive us, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts. He went on to say that what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. For our sins are not stronger than his love. Filled with the assurance of this hope St. Paul asks “what can separate us from the love of Christ?...“can hardships or distress or persecution…neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God” (Rm 8:35-39).

          And Jesus in the Gospel passage (Jn. 6:37-40) assures us that he came on earth to do not his will but the will of he who sent him, “Now the will of him who sent me is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me, but I should raise it up on the last day” (v.39). And no doubt our belief in the Son of the Father will be necessary for our victory over death, “It is my Father’s will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and that I should raise that person up on the last day” (v.40). Prior to this passage Jesus affirmed “Truly, I say to you, he who hears my words and believes him who sent me, has eternal life” (Jn 5:24).

          Dear brothers and sisters, what we have to celebrate today is not necessarily only about the dead, but also about death itself. As we pray for the dead, we equally have to think about the reality of death itself. Death is a reality that concerns us all; we cannot but talk about it. In the words of Henri J. M. Nouwen in his book “A letter to Consolation”, he proposes the idea of befriending our death:

And isn’t death, the frightening unknown that lurks in the depths of our unconscious minds, like a great shadow that we perceive only dimly in our dreams? Befriending death seems to be the basis of all other forms of befriending. I have a deep sense, hard to articulate, that if we could really befriend death, we would be free people. So many of our doubts and hesitations, ambivalences and insecurities, are bound up with our deep-seated fear of death, that our lives would be significantly different if we could relate to death as a familiar guest instead of a threatening stranger.

 

We should not be afraid of death, for Christ has won it forever. We may put our voices together to that of St. Paul in asking: “Death where is your victory? Death where is your sting? Thank God then for giving us the victory through Jesus Christ” (1Cor 15:55-57). But we need to be found worthy when the Master comes knocking!

          Above all else, however, with death man is born into eternity. Little wonder, the Church recognizes the day of death of saints as a day of their Birth into heaven (dies natalies). The question we have to ask ourselves today is, where will I spend my eternity or everlasting life? If I should die now, where will I be? Our reflection on death reminds us that we should be ready and well prepared for our date of Birth into Eternity. For as the psalmist says “man is like a grass that dies, sprouts in the morning, by evening it is dry and withered” (Ps. 90:6), “teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Ps 90:12). It is indeed true that “a caterpillar could never tell how beautiful it would become as a butterfly with beautiful wings”.

May the Souls of all the Faithful Departed through the Mercy of God Rest in Peace! Amen!!!

(Fr. Vitus M. C. Unegbu, SC)