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Readings Isaiah 40:28-31
from 2 Corinthians 4:14 – 5:1
Scripture: John 11:21-27
When Mel
Gibson finished splicing together the first version of The Passion of
the Christ (the version which did not show in theaters nationwide),
the movie concluded as Jesus’ corpse was interred in the tomb belonging
to Joseph of Arimathea. As the sun set, the small group of family
members and friends who had brought Jesus’ corpse to be buried turned
and slowly walked away. Watching these events unfold from inside of the
tomb, the screen gradually darkens as a large stone is rolled across the
opening, sealing the tomb. The screen has grown completely
black, leaving the members of the audience feeling themselves alone
inside of the tomb with the corpse. They cannot but contemplate what
all of this means.
The original
conclusion of The Passion of the Christ leaves members of the
audience perched on a precipice, one demarcating despair from hope. As
darkness forces the audience to contemplate the pit of despair―the
darkness where Evil reigns―all its members can ponder is a very sad
truth, namely, that life is nothing more a very cruel hoax where,
ultimately, everything comes to mean nothing…even for virtuous, good,
and holy people. That’s the thought captured by the question Jesus
asked as the darkness of death enshrouded him as he hung on the Cross.
“My God, why have you abandoned me?” he gasped.
Is what
Shakespeare called “life’s uncertain voyage”―especially the life of an
extraordinary person like Jesus of Nazareth―destined to end in a grave?
Or, is “life’s uncertain voyage” to end with its uncertainty resolved as
extraordinarily good persons like Jesus of Nazareth and his
disciples―like Carol Donoghue―arrive in the Eternal City of God?
With all of
its uncertainty, each human being has to make that choice for oneself.
For many, that road begins when a parent dies because we oftentimes
don’t think about how a mother and a father stand between their children
and their mortality. When a parent dies, a child suddenly realizes that
mom or dad is now gone and how this parent shielded the child from the
reality of one’s personal mortality.
So, the
choice is ours, each of ours. Is “life’s uncertain voyage” destined to
end in a grave or with one’s arrival in the Eternal City of God?
As we gather
today to celebrate the life and memory and to bid farewell to a good
woman, this is where Carol’s death leaves us. We ponder what her
suffering and death mean, not for Carol but for ourselves. The
insidious power of Evil has robbed Carol of so much life, “before her
time” as many have attested over the past five days. It doesn’t make sense nor does it seem just, does it?
Like those
who left Jesus’ tomb behind on Good Friday, when we contemplate the
darkness of the grave, we are presented with the identical choice. Will
we choose to despair believing that suffering, death, and the grave is
the end of our “life’s uncertain voyage”? Or, will we choose to embrace
hope, that by following the pathway of suffering and death Jesus and
Carol both trod, God will intervene and bring us at the completion of our
“life’s uncertain voyage” to the Eternal City? Nobody can make that
choice for us; it is a choice we must make for ourselves.
“If you had
been here, sir, my brother would not have died,” Martha chided Jesus
when he arrived in Bethany four days after Martha’s brother, Lazarus,
had died. If you detect a tone of sarcasm or of anger in Martha’s
voice, you listened well. St. John the Evangelist tells us it took
Jesus four days to make what was a short, two-mile trek from Jerusalem where
Jesus was teaching.
Martha’s
“greeting” gives voice to the question that has haunted the hearts of
grief-stricken people throughout history as they have confronted the
death of their beloved, just as today we confront the death of a beloved
spouse, mother, sister, friend, and colleague named Carol Donoghue. With so much
to look forward to in life and with so many experiences yet to be had,
it is only natural to ask: “Why would a God allow a good person to
suffer so much and, then, to be rewarded with death?”
This Easter
week, as Christians throughout the world reflect upon and celebrate the
Lord’s Resurrection, it is most appropriate to consider why God would
allow His only begotten Son to suffer so much and, then, die. If we can
grasp what his suffering and death truly mean―that God the Father of us
all would sacrifice His Son on behalf of us all―perhaps our eyes will
catch a glimmer of the light of the Resurrection breaking through the
darkness of our grief and enflame the power of hope that our “life’s uncertain
journey” really will not be all that uncertain as we behold God’s Eternal City.
No matter
how hard we try to evade suffering and death, none of us will evade
either. Suffering and death will force us to come face to face
with the dreadful reality we’ve named “Evil,” whose most virulent power
is to destroy human life. In Jesus’ Passion, we saw Evil
manifest itself in the form of lies, inhumane torture, and crucifixion.
In Carol’s Passion, saw Evil in the form of a debilitating, terminal
disease that slowly but surely sapped Carol of life. In both
manifestations, Evil’s purpose is similar: to get those who survive to
despair that “life’s uncertain voyage” is a very cruel joke perpetrated
by a maniacal deity who believes himself to be the
“Almighty
One,” even over death.
There is yet
another, more perniciously clever purpose served in these manifestations
of Evil. As its power deflects our considerations away from
grasping Evil’s true intent and causes us to focus instead upon and,
then, to blame God for the misery that darkens our hearts and minds,
Evil―“the most clever” of powers―incites anger toward God for doing
something we know God could never do, that is, to destroy what God has
created and called “good.” Only we human beings can do that.
So, in our
own experience, here’s how
we have seen how Evil’s purposes play themselves out.
In Jesus’
Passion, the power of Evil twisted the minds and hearts of people so
that they saw God’s only begotten Son as Evil incarnate, so much so that
the crowds had to expunge Jesus from their midst in a most cruel way,
lasting approximately three hours. In Carol’s Passion, Evil has
manifested itself by devouring Carol of life over a much longer period
of time. For both, suffering came to an identical end, death.
When Evil
tested the Corinthians in these ways, we heard St. Paul preach:
Don’t lose heart! Through our outward humanity is
in decay, yet day by day we are inwardly renewed. Our troubles are
slight and short lived; and their outcome an eternal glory which
outweighs them….For we know that if the earthly frame what houses us
today should be demolished, we possess a building which God has
provided―a house not made by human hands, eternal, and in heaven.
As the power of Evil beat Jesus and his disciple, Carol, down to the
point neither possessed the wherewithal to venture forward, this hope
about which St. Paul wrote strengthened both Jesus and Carol in their “life’s uncertain
voyage.” Capable of destroying life in both, Evil could not destroy the power of hope
present in their souls.
When Martha
chided Jesus with her greeting, he responded: “I am the resurrection
and I am the life. If anyone has faith in me, even though he die, he
shall come to life; and no one who is alive and has faith shall ever
die.” Then Jesus put this question to Martha: “Do you believe this?”
Carol had
faith in Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. “Even though she died”
Jesus says, “she will come to life because no one who is alive and has
faith shall ever die.”
So, Jesus
puts the same question to each of us: “Do you believe this?”
Carol’s
disease brought her to face her own mortality. Contemplating this, she
oftentimes would say, “I’ve lived a great life.” But, there was
something more. As former-United Nations Secretary General, Dag
Hammarskjöld,
noted four decades ago in his diary, Markings: “Do not seek
death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a
fulfillment” (p. 159). As Carol walked the road of her “life’s
uncertain journey,” she revealed what it means to be a very good
person. As we experienced this in this wife, mother, sister, friend,
and colleague, it is the power of Carol’s goodness brings us together
today. We remember and celebrate a life fulfilled.
Yet, as
important as all of this is, Carol also was a woman of hope. In her uncertainty, Carol
made her choice. For Carol, death does not end in a grave but with
one’s arrival in the Eternal City of God. And so, we also remember
and celebrate a hope that is to be fulfilled, as St. Paul says,
“in
a
building which God has provided―a house not made
by human hands, eternal, and in heaven.”
For this
great gift, a good person who witnessed to hope, we now turn to
the altar. Let us give thanks with hearts full of gratitude to God
Whose divine love was revealed in this good woman whose heart brimmed
over with hope.
May Carol’s
hope encourage us to cast aside the grief present in our
hearts and to allow Jesus, Who is the Resurrection and the Life, to fill our
hearts until they are brimming over with hope as we leave here to continue
along our “life’s uncertain journey.” |
HOMILY
