Can you count how many people you have met in life? We may not be able to do that accurately, but we might be able to trace the transformation that certain people have brought in us. These people could work this change because human nature is pliable, malleable, able to grow.
November is often a time to think about the past. At the end of the month, we will think over the last year or so, so that we can count our blessings at Thanksgiving. In that case, we are often drawn to our immediate circumstances – we give thanks for our health, our homes, our family ties. In the Church, the beginning of November gives us occasion to look back specifically at the people that have come and gone in our lives.
As we gather to celebrate the Feast of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls, take a moment to think of the men and women who made you the person you are. Then let your heart give way to gratitude:
- Your mom, teaching you to bake.
- The coach, who taught you to love the sport and to excel at it.
- The teacher, who introduced you to the love of reading.
- The older sibling, who modeled how to deal with challenges.
- The aunt, who listened to you and made you an empathetic person.
- The kid, two years ahead of you in high school, who did not belittle you, who made you believe the coming adult world would not be so bad.
Ponder for a while how different your life would be if you had never encountered them. How can you not be moved to gratitude for who they are and what they have brought into your life? Then, consider what comes after this life. Here, in this world, everything ebbs and flows. We gain, and we suffer loss. Heaven, on the other hand, is often seen as our joyful reward – where we truly become what God intended us to be from the moment of our creation. There, nothing is lost, nothing drops from the hand of God. There is no weakening or wilting.
The lives of the saints involve a true and lasting satisfaction, yet Scripture tells us heaven is not static, not an eternal stillness. Why not? Because God is the source of all creativity! So, heaven is not merely lovely mausoleum. It is a mill of blessing and an ever-flowing fountain life.
St. Paul teaches us that the core of Jesus’ mission and ministry was to reconcile us to God – to make us all acceptable in God’s sight:
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. (Romans 5:10)
We know by the experience of others that the transformation of our soul is never complete as we walk the earth – there is always more to know, to love, to change. So how does God prefect this reconciliation as we make the transition from this world to the next?
Through the centuries, Christians have been counselled to pray for the dead. There is much about this that is difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain. Here is what is essential: Our encounter with God changes everything! Our final reconciliation to God is not worked out in a place or over time. Rather we might think about this process of dying as reaching heaven’s porch, the antechamber where God meets us and embraces us in renewing love and mercy. That cosmic embrace, that hug, is what works the transformation, finishes what is yet incomplete about our perfection in God. When we join our hearts to God’s heart in prayer for those who have died, we participate in that wonderful work of love.
Hear the words from one of the appointed readings for the funeral rite in the Book of Common Prayer
In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble (Wisdom 3:7).
Those who struggle with the notion of our need for transformation after death make two mistakes: They esteem themselves too highly by thinking they are already perfected, and they insufficiently imagine the experience of the glory of God. Remember that you once thought your life was good enough, until you fell in love, until your child was born, until the right person came along. Then everything that went before seemed so very impoverished. That is what happens when we encounter true love. It is but a shadow of what we experience in this final, eternal encounter with God.
Now think again about the people whom you were destined to meet, who changed everything about you. Think on how they began this last, complete encounter with God. Wouldn’t you want to be part of what makes them whole and entire as God created them to be? As the early days of November dawn, pray for the dead – for those we have loved – and for those who had no one to love them in this world. Join your hearts to the heart of God as he welcomes them.
(Matthew 25:23)
