The New Kid on the Block

Friday, March 3, 2006

All my life I have wondered why people cry at funerals. Especially Catholics. We are the ones who live our entire lives as disciples of Christ in the hope of spending the rest of eternity with Him and His Father. Yet, we spend so much of our lives praying for more time, explaining to God that we still have too much to do. Like, He needs to hear that, right?

I am talking about this in my introduction to the blogosphere of "Parish World" because it is the title of my autobiography. It has been the cornerstone of my relationship to God and to the world for many years now.

God started to teach me this lesson when I was about seven years old. That's when my Aunt Cécile died at the ripe old age of twenty-five leaving behind a husband and a one year old daughter. She was but the first in a long line of my dear relatives who didn't get much time to finish what they had started. From 1944 through 1985 eleven first degree relatives of mine were taken up into the bosom of God.

As I went through this experience, and as I lost friends with whom I had attended grammar school, I always had a hard time figuring out why people were crying at all these funerals. After all, they were all Catholic. I can't believe that Catholics can't bring themselves to celebrate death rather than grieve about it. So, here are some of my reasons why you should not cry at my funeral.
I will be in the bosom of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Don't cry over that. I will be friends with Michael the Archangel; I will be swapping stories with Noah and the gang; I will be getting information about the Egyptian pharaohs from Joseph; I will be checking out my heroine, Judith and I won't forget to see if Jonah was really, real.
I will not have to get up to go to work any more; my wife won't have to worry about my shutting off the coffee pot, watering the orchids, calling the children, paying the bills, making the bed and...you get the idea.
You will not have to put up with the physical me any more. You will be able to pray for me to try to convince God to shorten my purgatory, or pray to me to try to convince God for you to get what would make you a better person.  There's no reason to cry over that.

If you never liked me anyway, why cry?
If I go to hell, I will be so mean that it won't matter to me if you cry or not.
One way or the other, I'll still be a part of your life. Oops, that's probably why people do cry at some people's funeral, maybe even mine.
One way or the other, come back and read some more.

(Click here to view the rest of the many wonderful articles that await you in www.ParishWorld.net, America's Catholic Lifestyle Magazine)