Hope in Grief

When we began reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, I mentioned that it was the very first book of the Christian Scriptures to be written.  All of St. Paul’s letters predate the Gospels, and of his letters, this is the first to be written.  The passage that we read today contains the earliest teaching of the Church regarding how we are to regard those who have died before us. 

We have lived with this passage for almost 2,000 years.  Yet the issue of death for the Christian is still one of those teachings that concerns people the most.  Our faith tells us that those who have lived in right relationship with God in this life will live with God in the next.  Yet our limited human knowledge of the mystery of life and death raises more questions that we have answers.  St. Paul obviously believed that Jesus’ return was imminent.  Obviously, in human terms and in our understanding of the term, he was less than accurate.  So what is it that we should take from this teaching? 

Perhaps the best idea we can come away with is that of hope.  We live in hope.  We die in hope.  Though his time line may not have been accurate, he treats the entire subject with the hope that makes it possible for us to look at death with hope that it is simply a matter of passing through the door of this life to the next.  In the meantime, we are to live for today – in the present – without concern for the future.  

Today we also begin to read from the Gospel of St. Luke and will continue to do so until the end of this liturgical year.  The passage from the Gospel speaks of Jesus’ mission while he is here on earth.  The fact is that it is our mission as well.  We are to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.  Though we might not literally be able to let the oppressed go free, we can, through the example of our lives, preach the Gospel which frees us from concerns about tomorrow and grounds us in the task of today. 

As we celebrate the Eucharist today, we not only proclaim the death of Jesus, we also profess his Resurrection in the sure hope that someday we will rise with Jesus.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator