21 years ago, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. my sister of 42 years died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul. Her head cradled in the arms of her good friend, Dr. Bob Conlin, and with all of us gathered around her, Mary died. She died on a Sunday, the day during the week that we celebrated always as the Resurrection (note: in Lent you are NOT to fast ever on Sunday for that precise reason.)
It hardly seems like 21 years, 10 years perhaps, but not 21 years. Ruthie, the kids and I drove back to New Prague in those early hours of Sunday morning. We stopped briefly at the Holiday Station in Burnsville, then made our way home. Ruthie and I were up early to assist mom and dad in making Mary’s funeral arrangements. At first, I thought that Mary’s funeral would be on my birthday, the 12th, but her funeral ended up on the 13th with her wake on the 12th. Not a day passes without me thinking of her.
What is presented here is the bulletin article I wrote on July 3rd, this year, early in the morning, the day of my mother’s funeral.
A couple of years prior to his death, the great spiritual writer Fr Henri Nouwen wrote a book entitled, “Our Greatest Gift.” I was intrigued by the title. What is this greatest gift about which Nouwen devoted a whole book? Was it about Jesus, whom we would all agree is our greatest gift? No, the greatest gift Nouwen wrote about is “death.” Nouwen did ministry in a community of adults who had multiple developmental disabilities. On his birthday, one resident, a 30 year old man named Bill told Nouwen the hard, cold truth. Bill said, “Henri, you are old.” Nouwen acknowledged that the number of years he had before him were far fewer than the number of years behind him.
The subject of the book came to Nouwen during the 6 months he cared for his sister-in-law who was dying from cancer. He wrote about his ministry to another young man who was dying from HIV. Nouwen wrote that human death is the great equalizer in human society. People along the human spectrum, the powerful and powerless, the wealthy and the poor, those with great status and prestige and those with none at all, the lawful and the lawless, each and everyone of them will eventually die. Death claims us all, including Jesus Christ. Jesus was not above death but willingly died to be in solidarity with us whom he had created.
Nouwen noted that human death need not be seen as horrible, but rather a mysterious passage through which we are born into eternal life. As babies must leave the safety and security of the womb to experience greater life, so must we leave the finite security of human life to pass into the fullness of eternal life. This is why the feast days of saints are not celebrated on the anniversary of their birth, but are celebrated on the anniversary of their death. The date of their death is the date of their birthday in heaven. Those of us whose lives have been touched by death receive comfort in knowing that Jesus, the Lord of the living and the dead, has conquered death once and for all, and leads our loved ones into the joy and peace of eternal life.
