The Other Side

ignatius-webFrom the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, November 2nd, 2014

 

This is the first memory of a very famous Jesuit priest and scientist, Fr.Pierre Teilhard de Chardain: “I was five or six. My mother had snipped a few of my curls. I picked one up and held it close to the fire. The hair was burnt up in a fraction of a second. A terrible grief assailed me; I had learned that I was perishable. What grieved me then? This insecurity of things! And what did I love? Iron! With a plow hitch I believed myself at seven years rich with a treasure incorruptible, everlasting. And then it turned out that what I possessed was just a bit of iron that rusted. At this discovery I threw myself on the lawn and shed the bitterest tears of my existence.” You may think he was a very unusual child. In some ways I suppose he was and he was a lifelong searcher after truth and meaning but there is something of that child and that man in all of us.            

Just as extraordinary is this letter written to God also by a young boy. The teacher who gave the children this exercise didn’t expect anything like this: “Dear God, I don’t know if I believe in you anymore. I wake up in the middle of the night and I think about dying and about how it might not be heaven. It might just be nothing forever and ever and ever. I wish I could be sure you are there or not. I can’t help thinking it’s just something people make up to make themselves feel good about dying. But I do hope you are real. I don’t mean to be rude, I just want you to know how I feel. Lots of love, Kevin.”

Again, you may think it unusual that a young child should have thoughts like these. But I think many children have similar questions and never ask them or did ask them and got nowhere. I certainly thought more about death when I was a child than I do now when I should be thinking about it! That same Jesuit, whose curls were burnt as a child, said late in life almost the same thing as young Kevin: “At the end of the day the only real suffering is doubt. Nothing would be difficult if we could be sure there is a Jesus at the other side.” Of course he knew better than anyone that if we could be sure it wouldn’t be faith and it wouldn’t be hope.

This weekend and all through November we will be remembering our loved ones who have died. Isn’t it strange that despite the many deaths we have experienced in our family or parish and all the funerals we have attended, we can still manage to hide from the reality that I too will die and maybe much sooner than I think. In that light, the death of a close friend or family member is like their last gift to us. Their going can wake us up to the reality that life is not a forever thing but a precious gift, something to make the most of while we can.

Our faith in Jesus and his promise of eternal life can help us in this work. At the time of death, of course, in the rawness of grief, it doesn’t help that much. It can seem so remote. But it is deeply consoling that even Jesus who had no doubt about life after death was still deeply moved – moved to tears – by the deaths of friends and strangers alike.

        That same Jesus will be waiting to welcome us on the other side!