Signposts On The Way

Yesterday’s readings challenge us to consider big themes, confronting us with the biggest theme of all: life and death. As I’ve written before, it seems in my personal life that I have entered a “season of death.” I’ve known a number of loved ones who have died or who are dealing with a terminal diagnosis. Of course, it’s a function of my age, surprising myself repeatedly when I utter the words, “I am 65 years old.” Perhaps you know someone who is facing imminent death. Perhaps you, dear Reader, have received such a diagnosis. Yesterday’s readings are a love message to you.

In 2017, Pixar released another one of their fabulous, animated films, called “Coco.” Inspired by the Mexican celebration Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), it was about a young boy learning about family love and heritage and the meaning of life and of death. It relates to the Catholic feast day of All Souls, when we honor the baptized members of the living Body of Christ whose earthly lives have concluded. For those of us from the prevailing U.S. culture, the Mexican comfort with images of death is absolutely jarring. Of course, this flows from our cultural focus on materialism and individualism. It does not help sales or garner votes to encourage people to be mindful of their mortality! The movie gamely addresses at a child’s level the terrible challenge of understanding death. It concludes that those who have died live on as long as we remember them.

I salute the writer for the effort to help children deal with death. But it lays a heavy burden on a child, particularly if they did not experience a strong bond with the person. And it begs the question that any parent knows a child will have: what happens to them after everyone they knew dies? Sunday’s readings offer a very different perspective and the first reading sums it up: “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wisdom 1:13). Instead, human mortality is a consequence of human sin, poetically described in Genesis, a corporate rejection of the life God intended for us. Sunday’s Gospel presents a contrast to that. God’s incarnate Love, Jesus, stands against death, first by curing the ill, and more profoundly by restoring life. It can also be understood as a poetic description of what the Author of Life intends for His creation: to restore life to those who rejoin the Communion of Life made possible through the rejection of sin and its deathly consequences by following The Way shown to us by Jesus, the simple (not always easy) act of “just hav[ing] faith” (Mk 5:36). “Do not be afraid” (Ibid).