Death

Weep, and with tears lament when with understanding I think on death, and see how in the graves there sleeps the beauty which once for us was fashioned in the image of God, but now is shapeless, ignoble, and bare of all the graces. O how strange a thing; what is this mystery which concerns us humans? Why were we given up to decay? And why to death united in wedlock? Truly, as it is written, these things come to pass by ordinance of God, Who to him (her), now gone gives rest.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

The death which You have endured, O Lord, is become the harbinger of deathlessness; if You had not been laid in Your tomb, then would not the gates of Paradise have been opened;wherefore to him (her), now gone from us give rest, for You are the Friend of Mankind.

Both now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Virgin chaste and holy, Gateway of the Word, Mother of our God, make supplication that his (her) soul find mercy.

Twice this year, I have heard these words during a holiday: once at Christmas and this week in Eastertide. Tuesday I went to a funeral of a pillar and mother of the Church. We also heard of the death of a dear friend recently and the news makes my stomach sick.

Easter this year is with Job.

We shouted “Christ is risen!” at a funeral this year, this time it is with longing that time end soon and death pass away. Just now we stand in tension between the miracle of Easter which gives us hope and immediacy of death. We will meet, but we miss them.

The Church understands that mourning is necessary, because death is sad. Who can stand to see the beauty of the person, the image of God in the Earth, falling into decay? We see the body we love lowered into the earth or into a tomb and our minds rebel.

This mystery is revealed to us when God comes and aids our reason and so we can see Him. When we see Him, we do not feel cheerful, but we know God.

What do we know? We do not know all the detail, some of which is unknowable. Why unknowable? God will not reveal His relationship with anyone else. He holds our hearts and until the End of Time will not justify Himself by telling us what only He knows about other people. Yet when we see God and God’s nature combined with His power, we can rationally trust that things are the best they can be. 

Like God, we hate what sin has done, but seeing God we see mercy with the power of the resurrection. If Christ is risen, we have hope. Thank God.

We can trust God, given what we see of God’s nature. This is what Job came to see in his sorrow. Religious people gave answers, some true as far as they went, some slanderous to God. How could Job be comforted? He needed to see God and know that though some of the details were unknowable, the character of God was seeable:

I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

³ Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

⁴ Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

⁵ I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

We mourn, but Christ is risen. I hate death, lovely life is coming.

Come Lord Jesus.