For someone who died away from the church

Friday, February 24, 2017

Special reflection:

Note: Many times we are faced with the death or relatives or friends who were baptized Catholic but whose life choices led them away from the Church of their youth, often to ways of living that the Church teaches to be sinful. This homily was written for such an occasion. It gave comfort to the elderly parents of a man who died young, far removed from the faith in which he was raised. It is offered to those who may find themselves in the same circumstances and who are searching for a ray of hope to guide them through the dark days of mourning and questioning. We shall refer to this man, who died at the age of 39, as “George.”

                We Catholics are funny creatures at times. We hold to what we believe to be “the true faith” and yet we are particularly solicitous towards those who share our faith in Christ yet are separated from us because of doctrinal differences or historical circumstances.

                We believe with all our hearts and souls that the true road to salvation and the most powerful means of grace to bring us that salvation are the Sacraments of the Church, particularly Baptism, Penance and Eucharist--and yet when someone dear to us has died separated from those wellsprings of grace, we pray more earnestly than ever for the salvation of his soul. We pray and beg that God’s mercy will extend beyond the grave and that there is still a chance that  the power of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross will “cleanse him, forgive his sins and raise him up to eternal joy in God’s presence,” as we pray in the Post-Communion prayer near the end of the Funeral Mass.

                We believe that presumption is a sin--and so we never presume that we--or any individual soul-is going to be rushed right into heaven at the moment of death--it is important to realize that when Mother Theresa died the Church prayed the same funeral prayers that we will pray today for George-- and therefore we are loathe to assume that even the most notorious sinner will be spared the fate of hell, even when this person has spent a lifetime living a life that appears to be outside the embrace of God. Notice I said appears to be - - for none of can ever truly know the state of a person’s soul, and because Our Lord has taught us most insistently that we are never to judge, never: “The measure with which you measure,” He said, “will be measured back to you.” And so we have been taught not to judge but to hope. We always hope that the wideness of God’s mercy is greater than the scope of anyone’s sins and weaknesses and failings, and we hope that that wideness will be applied to us as well at the moment of our own deaths.

                One might wonder why we bother living Catholic lives in this world if we admit that God’s mercy is not limited to the means of salvation that are ours as Catholics. The answer to the paradox is found within us: We live Catholic lives because our faith is a gift from God to us, and because we have come to realize that by living our faith we find a greater measure of inner peace in this life, an inner peace which nothing, absolutely nothing else can give to us. We know this from experience. Many of us within the Church, including some of the greatest saints in the Church’s history, lived a great number of years searching for that peace outside the faith, and we were never able to find it. Many of us have returned after years of separation from what is sometimes called the “joy of our youth”--in fact, George spoke those very same words when an altar boy at this church: “I will go unto the altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth.” Ask those who returned; invariably they will tell you that the peace, and the joy of their rediscovered faith is dearer to them than it was before they had left to go searching on their own.

                Some people aren’t given enough time to make this journey home before their earthly life runs its course: this happens particularly when one has died an untimely and unexpected death. But even then, we pray and hope that it is not too late. We take great consolation in something Jesus once said--that “these disciples re God’s gift to me--and no one shall ever snatch them out of my hand. We remember George as an altar server: and we pray that no one can, or will, snatch him out of the Lord’s hand.

                We Catholics are often scoffed at, even by other Christians, because of our doctrine of Purgatory--and yet at times like this we find that the reality of Purgatory is a source of great comfort and hope. The die wasn’t cast for all eternity the night that George died. There is still time for the most important work of his eternal life to be done. We pray that through the merits of the sacrifice of  Christ on the Cross--which extend to every person who has ever made it to heaven, whether they knew Christ or not--we pray that through this sacrifice, George’s journey will be completed, that he will be purified of all sin--just as we hope to be--and that, through some process of transformation and purification known only to God, that George will be brought home, totally cleansed and purified, and that he will rest in peace and one day enter the Kingdom of Heaven to await the final return of all who loved him here on earth, and all who grieve his death here today.

And so now, as we offer the Body and Blood of Christ for the forgiveness of George’s sins, let each of us ask God to help us do what it is that we must do, what our consciences urge us to do, so that one day we too may join him in heaven where there will be no sorrow, no sickness, no death nor wailing or mourning, and where Christ will be the perpetual light that shines upon us forever. Amen.