During this month of November, we gather as faith communities in our churches to remember all the faithful departed from our parishes – they are family, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins and friends. As we gather we recall the many days we shared with them – days of laughter, of celebrating the milestones of life, of sharing in their successes. Memories are to be treasured, it is in memories that our loved ones live on with us.
The Gospel of the Beatitudes offers us blessings from God as Jesus sits down to teach the disciples. Take a moment now to sit with this teaching today…every blessing named brings a great reward to the believer who accepts these teachings from Jesus. Rewards that are beyond our wildest dreams! We may wonder though in the midst of our own sorrow and grief at the loss of the one we loved so much how Jesus can say ‘to mourn is to be blessed, for in our mourning we will be comforted.’
Mourning is part of our loving – if we have not loved we cannot mourn and be comforted. It is this that brings hope for us left behind that one day we will be reunited in the presence of God. The comfort comes from the people who gather with us in the midst of our sorrow – they are the hands of God wrapped around us to let us know of his presence within us and among us in our sadness.
Death is the end of our earthly pilgrimage but not of our existence since our soul is immortal – death then is the passage to the fullness of life in Christ. So let us be blessed that our loved ones are at rest with the Lord and take comfort in the support, the prayers and the care of those who surround us in our days of mourning.
Let us be blessed together that we have known such love.
Karen OSU