One of the most moving verses in Holy Scripture is also the shortest: “Jesus wept.” This appears in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of St John, after Our Lord has arrived in Bethany to be told the news of the death of Lazarus. At first Our Lord’s reaction might seem puzzling. After all, moments later, He will raise Lazarus from the dead and call him from his tomb. It is, however, a striking testimony to the reality of Our Lord’s humanity. Seeing Mary, Martha and their companions grief stricken, He shares their sorrow. This teaches us that mourning is an appropriate and a Christian response to the loss of someone we love. Our tears have been sanctified by the tears of the Word Made Flesh.
There is also another reason for Our Lord’s grief, however, which has more to do with His divinity. As the Eternal Logos, through Whom the universe was created, He well knows that death was never part of God’s original plan for humanity. Rather it is the consequence of the devil persuading Eve that if only she would take the forbidden fruit, she and Adam would “not die the death” and would “be like gods”. Forgetting that she had already been given a supernatural likeness to God, along with the preternatural gift of immortality, Eve succumbed. Seeing His friends in such profound grief outside Lazarus’s tomb, Our Lord surely “groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself” in the face of the whole history of human suffering and sorrow, which was the result of that original deception by the enemy of God and man, the father of lies.
Death was the most fitting and terrible punishment for sin. Adam, whom God had formed from the dust of the earth, and into whose nostrils He had breathed the breath of life, would suffer separation of his soul and body, the latter returning to the soil from which it had been created. Mercifully for us this was not to be the end of the story. If the third chapter of Genesis details the tragedy of the fall and all its dreadful consequences, the whole of the remainder of Holy Scripture is an account of God’s rescue plan for His creation, culminating in Our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, and the mission of the Church to bring all nations to salvation through the proclamation of the Gospel and Baptism. In this sacrament, we die with Christ and are buried with Him, ascending from the waters of regeneration unto everlasting life. Our Catholic funeral rites bear witness to this, in the honouring of the mortal remains of the deceased with holy water and incense. This reminds us that the corpse on the catafalque was once a living temple of the Holy Ghost, and that the bodies of those who die in Sanctifying Grace will one day be reunited with their souls in eternity, incorruptible and glorified. Meanwhile, we mourn with and comfort one another in times of bereavement, just as Our Lord grieved, even though He knew He would soon raise Lazarus from the tomb. But our grief is tempered by hope, and the knowledge that life has triumphed over death.
In this month of November, the Church invites us to meditate on mortality. On the first day of the month, we celebrate the feast of all the saints, whose souls share in God’s glory at the Throne of Grace. Even for them, the best is yet to come, when they are reunited with their bodies at the end of time. Meanwhile, we venerate their holy relics, the earthly remains in which they cooperated with divine grace in the achievement of sanctity. We take courage from their intercession for us, in full knowledge of the difficulties and temptations that beset us in this life. Monsignor Knox said that we should think of the saints as the scouts who have been sent on ahead on a gruelling expedition. They turn around and assure us that our destination, the promised land, is in sight and well within our reach. They stretch out their hands to lift and steady us when we falter and fall. Cultivating their friendship gives us a great advantage in this earthly pilgrimage.
On the second day of the month, our attention turns to the souls in Purgatory. We call them the Holy Souls because they are somewhat better off than us. They have died in the state of grace, and their eternal salvation is secure. But they are also the Poor Souls, because they must be purified of all attachments to sin which have disfigured them, and in this they are unable to help themselves. Just as the saints support us, so are we able to assist the Poor Souls with our prayers, the application of holy indulgences and, most powerful of all, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in their behalf.
May Our Lady, St Philip and All the Saints pray for us. And may the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
Father Julian Large