DEATH BEFORE OUR EYES

Gustav Klimt-  Death & Life

Here it is already Laetare Sunday (Rejoice Sunday) and yet how many of us feel like rejoicing with the state of our world, our country, our community and family? But if we look to the reason for this day, we have plenty to rejoice about- namely the giveness of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

And yet, that human side of us looks to what is taken away- basically our freedom- to go to work, to school,  travel, etc. Even more important we can’t go to Mass, we can’t visit family and dear friends.  Our routines are disrupted and we  are being challenged as never before. No matter what we offered for Lent, it could not begin to compare to the challenges we now face. Part of that is facing death. St. Benedict tells us in his rule, we need to keep death daily before our eyes.  A gruesome thought?  Not if one understands that we must keep our sights on eternity.  If our small minds could comprehend what awaits us in the other life, we would rejoice, rather than cower in fear.

This season of Lent, like no others,  is a time to reflect  about how we live as a community as we strive  to protect each other from illness. Our island of 100 people is working hard to assure that everything is in place to prevent the virus and to assist anyone who comes down with it.  

Americans have a great heart when it comes to helping others in times of crises- like 9/11-  but soon we get back to our old, comfortable, though not always spiritually productive ways!

This is a time of “quarantine”  when there is more time to pray - for those who have died,  for those who are sick and those living in great fear, for all the  health care workers who are risking their lives for others, and we need to pray  for one another, especially those who have no faith.

We need to turn our hearts and minds to Jesus Christ to help us “through the desert” during this time of Lent.  We need to ponder that we are still wandering and confused in these times of Lent as Moses and the Jews were in the desert for 40 years and Jesus who was praying in the desert for 40 days.

Death & Maiden- Egon Schiele

 Adrienne von Speyr, a Swiss medical doctor and mystic who died in 1967, says “Lord, because we take Your death so lightly that we rarely even think about it,  the thought of our own death is also strange and distant.  Even when stern messengers forewarn us,  we manage to stifle the thought of our death and to go on living as if our earthly existence would never end.”

“Let us die as believers  whose faith also shines upon the others  who assist at our death, brings them help now, and perhaps later, when their own hour comes, gives them consolation.”