Dear Friends,
It’s a healthy and life-giving practice to celebrate All Saints/All
Souls Day with people throughout our Church. We celebrate our loved ones, people
whose faithfulness to God we admire, on a day apart from their own day of death
with its lingering sadness. In Mexico, the Day of the Dead finds people building
altars in their homes on which to place mementoes of their beloved dead. Family
and friends gather to celebrate the loved ones who have died. The celebrations
spill out into neighborhoods.
In this way of looking at death, victory has been achieved.
For Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, the victory is also achieved.
Among His last words in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says,
“It is finished.”
Most of the time, readers interpret that phrase as,
“It is over. I am done.”
There seems to be a tone of overwhelming pain in those
words.
But a woodworker, having lovingly created, let’s say a table,
rubs it with polishing powders and pastes, waxes and oils to bring out the
texture of the wood, its deep colors and essential patterns. When the
woodworker is satisfied, s/he says:
“It is finished.”
That means it has achieved its maximum gloss, its beauty has
been revealed. It is complete.
On the cross, as death winged its way toward Him, Jesus
could say, “it is finished.” He realized
He was complete. This side of death, His fullness had been achieved.
Today, find some mementoes of your beloved dead around the
house – a photo, a gift given to you, something that was in your household
growing up which you claimed for your own. Put these pieces in a prominent
place where you can see them for the next week or two and relish the life of
the one whose memory they represent.
In the words of today’s psalm, we also pray for our own hope
for eternal life:
One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek To live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life…I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
