Prayer to Celebrate the Lives of Our Dead
November is a month to pray for our dead and to celebrate their lives. We have memories of those who have gone before us. We have a treasure trove of good memories of loving family members and maybe some painful memories of separation and reconciliation; there are memories of school, the neighbourhood and countless small kindnesses.
At a time of death, we can look back and see that many unexpected things in life were well worthwhile and brought us happiness, even if they were difficult at the time. Our faith helps with those painful memories of others, whether we miss them or regret some part of our relationship with them. They are now with God and the fullness of love, with maybe repentance for faults, sins and failings. With God we will be at our best in eternity.
A popular funeral reading is the ‘time for everything’ reading from Ecclesiastes. Our time of death is not of our choosing. It’s not that God had the date of death planned, rather it is that the body has its own ‘clock’ and can last only so long. At that time God is close, very near, near to welcome us home.
The funeral liturgy remembers with thanks a person’s life but also faces the question – where is he/she now? All we can say is that we will see God face to face and, in some mysterious way, be united with all those we knew and loved on earth.
At every funeral each of us can bring away something we got from knowing the dead person – help from them, their prayers, their love. Even in sadness we can go from our funeral rituals and answer the question, ‘How did this person enhance my life?’
Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, November 2023
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Living in Communion with others
Give us eyes to see the deepest needs in people’s lives.
Give us hearts full of love for our neighbours as well as for the strangers we meet.
Help us to understand what it means to love others as we love ourselves.
Teach us care in a way that strengthens those who are sick.
Fill us with generosity as we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty.
Let us be the healing presence for those who are weak and weary, by offering our welcome and kindness to them.
May we remember to listen and to offer a helping hand and heart, when the opportunity presents itself to us.
Give us hearts of understanding when we disagree, but let us never be disagreeable to one another.
Inspire us to go out of our way to include those who are unknown and unnoticed.
Help us to be inclusive to all who come to our door.
John Cullen, The Sacred Heart Messenger, August 2023
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Giving Sanctuary
The debate about refugees who are illegally trafficked, as to whether they deserve or are entitled to any resources, is one that dominates discussions and can lead to suspicious and censorious comments that exploit divisions between people and promote fear and hatred. This is where populism and extremism thrive.
The story about the Good Samaritan leaves us with questions about who we are, where we put ourselves in the story, and it leaves us with an uneasy sense that we could be any or all of the characters in the story. We are people who find easy and at times religious excuses for not doing what is required of us. We are people who are left helpless at the side of the road by a violent and meaningless world. We are people who, like the despised Samaritan, can offer to a stranger a service of compassion, friendship and hospitality.
We are invited to be surprising strangers of welcome to one another! This implies that we will receive unexpected hospitality from surprising strangers, who are our neighbours.
Giving sanctuary was a service that hallmarked the Church. It needs to be revived. No one should feel excluded from our Church. Giving sanctuary is a faithful witness of the message and mission of the Church. Giving sanctuary is the synodal way of being faithful, hopeful and loving. This means rendering ourselves vulnerable to others whom we don’t understand and probably don’t like and may even find scandalous or threatening.
John Cullen, The Sacred Heart Messenger, July 2023
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The broader perspective
A friend, facing a terminal diagnosis, remarked that he was now going to be engaged in the serious business of dying, letting go of all that was still holding him and attending to unfinished business in his life and relationships. Getting older is not about settling down with pipe, slippers and rocking chair. It involves some serious work for which we were not equipped in earlier years.
The butterfly has much to teach us here. As she flies over the forest where she first hatched and experienced her metamorphosis, she gazes down on her descendants, still crawling along the branches as caterpillars, with no idea of what lies ahead. It’s all about feeding and self-defence. The butterfly sees the bigger picture. She knows caterpillar life is not the end of the story. She knows that just when you feel you are helplessly disintegrating, something amazing may be about to emerge.
When you can see the bigger picture, everything changes. You know that everything passes and the human spirit survives. You see life from a different perspective. You are looking through the lens of the mystic. Your ability to see the bigger picture can help the younger people in your life deal better with and perhaps see beyond the passing struggles of their own lives.
As he looks upon the infant Jesus, Simeon declares that he is now ready to depart, for he has seen the fulfilment of God’s dream. Like Simeon, you have climbed your life’s mountain. You can see the broad horizon, with its beauty and its dangers. You have seen the power of God at work in your own life. And even as you approach the point of departure from everything you know and love, you, like the emerging butterfly, are standing on the threshold of transformation.
Margaret Silf, The Sacred Heart Messenger, December 2023
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Faith manifests in different ways
In reading a piece about the last judgement a woman in her eighties wondered, ‘If God has forgiven me, why is there a judgement?’ I could understand her question. Taking some theological liberty, I said that the judgement after death was for God to say again to each of us that we are forgiven, and to remind us of the good we had done and had tried to do. Her reply was, ‘Consoling for the once baptised who have fallen away’. Was she thinking not of herself, but of her children, most of whom were not churchgoers? I think so. Many people’s religious questions often cloak a worry they have about others.
Many parents and grandparents worry about the lack of faith in their children and grandchildren. It is a deep sadness for a generation that did their best in handing on faith and practice. Some nuggets of wisdom can help: ‘Let God look after them, he loves them even more than you do’; ‘We all find our own way to God and in life’; ‘Their faith will come at its own time’. It is consoling to think that much goodness –kindness, love for the poor, prayer, care and compassion –is passed on by parents, even if the faith of a younger generation might be expressed differently.
Mary and Joseph wondered what had got into Jesus to run off and leave them worried and anxious. His answer, ‘I must be about my father’s business’, is relevant also for us. Many people are about their father’s business in different ways than I am, or a parent is. The important thing is that somehow, somewhere, we are, in trying to live the good life, ‘about our father’s business’!
Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, January 2021
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Be like St Francis of Assisi
The feast of St. Francis of Assisi is celebrated each year on the 4th of October. It marks the end of the Season of Creation and invites us to celebrate the patron saint of ecology. St Francis was a mystic who, ‘faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness’ (Laudato Si’, 12).
Aware of just how deeply interconnected everything is, St. Francis had a deep grasp of what we today call integral ecology. Just as Jesus spent much time in nature, contemplating the sparrows (Luke 12:6) and the tiniest of seeds (Luke 17:5), so St. Francis also lived in complete harmony with creation. He showed us that care for creation is inseparable from concern for one another, justice for the poor and our own interior peace. Seeing that everything is connected, and living out this vision joyfully and with an open heart, St. Francis was – and is – deeply loved. He takes us to the heart of what it is to be human, and invites us to a profound interior conversion: ‘Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever Francis would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise’ (Laudato Si’, 11).
We are called into this awareness so that we repair our broken relationship with the natural world and with each other. We are called to turn away from destruction and, feeling intimately connected to all that exists, to care more deeply for our common home.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Sacred Heart Messenger, October 2021
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Gratitude
There is a lot to be said for gratitude. Life is a precious gift, which we should appreciate and enjoy. I know a lovely lady who claims you should live with a grateful heart. Each morning, she thanks God and each evening. If only we could all live our lives like this every day. It is not only giving thanks to God for his precious gift to us. It is good for us to value things. It improves our outlook. We become more positive, and we see even more of the good things God has given us.
We take so much for granted, which can lead to a negative outlook. Living life with a grateful heart means knowing that God has given us everything and that he wants us to be happy. This is the day the Lord has made – rejoice and be glad.
Mary Hunt, The Sacred Heart Messenger, February 2022
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Be grateful for Our Food Resources
We waste a lot of food.
We buy too much.
We are mesmerised by bargains like ‘3 for the price of 2’.
Pope Francis on waste of food:
‘Our grandparents used to make a point of not throwing away leftover food. Consumerism has made us accustomed to wasting food daily, and we are unable to see its real value … throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry – around 1.3 billion metric tonnes (1.43 billion tons) of food, or one third of what is produced for human consumption, gets lost or wasted every year, according to the United Nation’s food agency.’
Like Jesus, Pope Francis used dramatic language to make a point. He reminded us of something we don’t want to hear. When we waste food, we disrespect what the earth gives us. Caring for the earth is not only about environmentalism; it is also about ensuring the equal distribution of the earth’s resources and being grateful to the earth for what it gives us.
Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, September 2022
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Sharing and Caring for Our Common Home
It is worthwhile to explore the riches of the Pope’s chosen term for Mother Earth – our common home. The word ‘home’ stirs up in us a world of memories and emotions. If you have had a happy childhood, home is the place for which you feel the greatest affection: it blends good relationships with the particularities of the place where you began your life. As Elvis Presley has it, home is where the heart is. This resonates with the saying, ‘It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home.’.
The Pope says:
Our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life, and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. (Laudato Si’, 1)
It is hard to imagine a more heart-stirring name for the world than ‘our common home’. ‘Our planet is a homeland and humanity is one people living in a common home’ (Laudato Si’, 164).
We must rediscover what our ancestors enjoyed – a deep and loving sense of relationship with planet Earth and all its inhabitants. As children, we shared what was perhaps a small home; now we share a planet, and like St Francis of Assisi of old, we in our time are charged with the task of protecting and repairing it.
Brian Grogan SJ, Finding God in a Leaf: The Mysticism of Laudato Si’
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Being ‘At Home’ with the Bible
When we are grieving or in doubt, we know we can turn to the Bible in trust. When we turn to the Bible, to particular verses, we are in fact making our own personal map of the rooms where we feel at home with God and ourselves. These rooms become home to us. We can visit them as we begin the day or take a quiet break in them in the evening. These verses become places where we take root and grow, like the fruitful tree in the first psalm, ‘whose leaves never fade’.
The Bible and the gospels remind us that we never go home alone! God’s word is an invitation to engage in conversation, whether verbal or silent. Often, this conversation will bring us into the varied company of the people in the Bible stories.
Being at home in God’s word allows us solitude when we need it. It also offers us the interesting company of people who can comfort us when we are disturbed and disturb us when we are too comfortable.
Alan Hilliard, The Sacred Heart Messenger
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