Gift of death

"Death is the greatest gift God has given us," declared Fr. Arro today at mass celebrating All Souls' Day. Seeing as he was speaking to a church full of living souls who already know what it is to experience the great gift of life, he was right.

Death is the only way we can experience new life. It is the doorway to a richer and fuller life, one that is in complete communion with God. No longer would we be looking at life "through the glass darkly", seeing only partially, and experiencing the fullness of life and love in elusive glimmers that escape us as soon as they appear.

In TOB, JP2 calls this perfect union of man's soul with God's original nakedness.

When God created man and woman, there was a perfect union between man and God, woman and God, and man and woman. Man and woman were naked but felt no shame.*

They were literally and figuratively naked - completely vulnerable to the other and yet completely open and trusting.

There were no miscommunication or hidden agendas for each accepted and loved the other unconditionally, as a precious gift.

There was no baggage or brokenness to blight the relationship as both man and woman were in union with the Creator and in harmony with each other.

As we all know, it was disobedience that caused the Fall and fractured that communion with God and thereby affecting all our earthly relationships with each other.

However, because Jesus came to save us, giving up his life for us, we were redeemed and brought back to the beginning, where relationships were forged of unconditional love.

This is big for it means we can potentially regain the perfect union with God and perfect relationships with each other.

The only problem is humans have this tendency to forget what perfection is and are driven by this yearning for more in life, rarely satisfied for more than a brief moment in time.

And so we have to be content with ephemeral and fragile perfect moments of communion and look forward to the long final sleep of death that will awaken us to new life.

In the meantime, I can only fight against my forgetfulness by cultivating a heart of gratitude, giving thanks to the Creator for every breath I take, and to make the effort to journal and record all singular moments of perfection as they present themselves in my life's journey.

* Genesis 2:25