Home

I listened recently to part of a radio interview about helping children to cope with death.  The advice was considered and professional.  In essence, be honest with the child relative to their age.  Later in the week I was out in Molonglo.  The growth struck me.  It pointed to confidence in the future.  Families and couples will move in, babies be born and new stories created; in many instances long after my demise.  We have an insatiable thirst for life but death will claim all.  Therefore, make the most of now is the default positon.  But is that it?  Our Readings affirm that we all die but that life beyond death beckons.  In other words, here and now is not the sum of the existence to which we are called.  Our First Reading insists that death was not God’s will but rather the result of our being seduced by the devil and being unfit for life eternal.  However, “by raising Jesus from the dead God has triumphantly demonstrated that physical death, though unavoidable, does not have the last word” (Brendan Byrne).  Our Gospel records two miracles.  Both are about life; life restored in community and life restored following physical death.  Jairus, the Synagogue official is told to persevere in faith, even after news of his daughter’s death.  Meanwhile, Jesus responds to the faith of the woman who touches his garments.  Jesus identifies her as being cured and in so doing publicly restores her to the community.  The woman had been ‘unclean’ and isolated for 12 years.  The daughter of Jairus is 12 years old.  “Jesus raises the girl so that, now arrived at marriageable age, she may take up her adult life, just as the woman returns to life in the community – including the possibility of marriage – after a 12-year exclusion” (ibid).  Fair enough but what consolation is that to parents who have lost a child?  Or those facing the sudden and tragic death of a loved one?  Nothing will assuage the deep and immediate pain.  Loved ones support but the wound is so deep.  We find consolation in the crucified one who died innocent and alone but for his mother and a few others.  He rises from the dead, the author and giver of life eternal.  While resurrection is assured, it is often not realised in a mere three days.  A more common experience is that people feel uncomfortable that the Church’s funeral liturgy prays for mercy and forgiveness for the deceased.  Michael Mc Girr comments: “They think that we should speak no ill of the dead, least of all at their own funeral, and that perhaps a few funny stories may not capture the full complexity of any individual but at least they will make us feel better on a sad day.  Of course, a funeral involves the celebration of a life and a funeral can sometimes be a place for laughter as well as tears.  But the Church believes that a funeral should be real in the most profound way and part of the reality of every life is sin.  Nobody is perfect and most of us are far from it.  We appreciate that God knows us better than we know ourselves and trust that God’s love will be more powerful than our self-centredness.”

Fr John