(Chapter 3:1-9)
The first wake service I conducted as a deacon was for a 13-year-old boy who had been shot accidentally by a friend. As I prepared for the ritual, I realized that I had to avoid the temptation to tell that boy's family that somehow this was all right. The passage from the Book of Wisdom says, regarding the "souls of the just," that they "seemed in the view of the foolish to be dead and their passing away was thought an affliction." But there was nothing foolish about the sense of loss the parents and little sister of that boy, and many others who knew him, were experiencing on that day. The loss was real. Whatever future they had envisioned for this boy, whatever part he was to play in their family life and in the community would ever be realized. From that point of view, the boy didn't only "seem to be dead." His little sister, the first person I encountered when I walked into the funeral home, drilled that home for me: "You know," she said, "my brother is not going to wake up."
No, there was nothing all right about this—not the foolhardiness of children playing with a firearm; not the carelessness of adults who hadn't secured the weapon—and, while I did not refer to either of those factors, I knew I dared not imply by my tone or demeanor that I viewed them only as steps on the way to glory. And yet, as Garrison Keillor has said, "Faith is hope despite evidence to the contrary," and this wake service was my first lesson in mitigating present grief with the promise in the book of Wisdom: "The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them." We take comfort in that promise as we commemorate those souls today.
Responsorial Psalm
Unless we're unusually lucky, life will deal us some hard knocks. But the psalmist reminds us to endure these blows in the context of the love God always has for us and who, at last, is our destiny:
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
A reading from Saint Paul's letter to the Church in Rome
(Chapter 5:5-11)
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
How much more then, since we are now justified by his Blood,
will we be saved through him from the wrath.
Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.
Saint Paul, in this passage, was writing about the Paschal Mystery—specifically, about the death and resurrection of Jesus, the cross and the empty tomb. Some Christian churches prefer to display the cross without the body of Jesus, because, I believe, that they want to focus on the Resurrection. The crucifix reminds us, however, of the reality of Jesus' death, that it wasn't an abstract idea but the actual suffering of a human being and yet the passageway to new life in the presence of God. In our own suffering and in the suffering of our loved ones, the crucifix reminds us of the new life that lies beyond it.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
In the episode described in this passage, Jesus tells "the crowds," "this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” To believe in the Son is to believe in his resurrection, which was not a fable or a parable but an historic event. We believe that he died and rose from the dead and lives forever. Believing that, we can believe that our loved ones who died in God's love now live in his presence, and we can believe that we, too, can share in that new life.
✝️
Painting: The Resurrection of Christ, Noël Coypel (1628-1707). Musée des Beaux Artes de Rouen, France. Public Domain.
Excerpts from the English translation of the Lectionary for Mass © 1969, 1981, 1997, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL). All rights reserved.
Charles Paolino is managing editor at RENEW International and a permanent deacon of the Diocese of Metuchen.