PAIN AND SUFFERING ARE FROM GOD AND HE WANTS THEM BACK

There are people in this world who live every day in pain.  It varies from person to person, but it is still pain.  For some of these valiant souls the pain that they suffer would debilitate many of us who are presently reading these lines.  Some people go to work daily while suffering the discomfort of nearly failed kidneys.  Some do the same while staving off the effects of 500 blood sugar levels.  There are those who have incorrigible back pain caused by some other condition that robs their body of the symmetrical balance that it requires to be comfortable.  Finally, so as not to prolong this enumeration, there are those who have to go through life with mental and emotional deficiencies.

A few short weeks ago, my loving spouse and I participated in a funeral Mass that was very meaningful to both of us.

It was for a 31 year old Down Syndrome woman whose mother is professionally close to us.  I am writing this because I could not stop thanking God for filling the church for this celebration. Small church, but wall to wall people, 350 according to my count, from a stuffed up choir loft!  God's little ones sure have a way of dragging us behind them, don't they?  I kept remembering what my Internet preacher brother, Reef Lector,  wrote about his daughter Laurie some time ago. In the case about which I am musing here,  we had learned just shortly before her dying, that she was not well.  We also learned about her personal spiritual relationship with God.  She was so close to God that it did not frighten her when she said "No" to dialysis.  Some few days later she went home.  Five days after that she filled the church.  I was glad to be there.  It was a moment of high spirituality for me and for Belle, my spouse..  

It somehow reminded me of the last time I celebrated the Holy Mass.  It was a funeral for a seven year old boy.  He too filled the church with more Protestants than I ever thought could fit into a Catholic church for any reason.  Baptists, every last one.  This was a military child who suffered bravely before going to the bosom of Abraham.  We had a big church in El Cajon, CA, and it was full.

The father was Catholic and the mother Baptist.  You should have heard the singing...they were rocking the place.  The whole thing lasted for nearly two hours and we still had to go to the cemetery.  The cemetery was almost too small!  As we were hugging and wiping our eyes I found myself being hugged by Mama and when the squeeze got a little looser she said from the depths of her heart, "I'll never be Catholic, but I will carry this to the grave in the happy corner of my heart."

I left there and started my journey into the future from LAX six hours later.

I remember my father.  From the time he was still a pre-teen lad he was in pain. He had broken his leg in a winter sledding accident.  The family was financially incapable to have a doctor intervene in the setting of the leg.  The lad contracted a case of pneumonia during the setting period of the leg.  The infection got into the bone, leaving the leg nearly two inches shorter than the one on the other side.  The resulting disequilibrium caused skeletal pain that was always present. Despite it all, the man led a normal life.  He never graduated from high school, but at age 35 he passed the state exams to qualify as a tool engineer - on his one and only try.  

He was a holy man.  He never suffered alone.  He walked the Way of the Cross every single day side by side with Jesus.  He was rewarded with a sudden death at the ripe old age of 47 years.

This past Saturday I presided over the Celebration of the Memorial for a dear aunt of mine who died at the age of 88.  She endured many different sorts of pain during her last few years.  She shared her journey with God and she shared it with her loving son and daughter-in-law.  Through it all, the art that she created lives on behind her.  The love that she shared is still shaking those that she left behind.

At that Memorial service some of the siblings of our dear cousin David shared the suffering of their brother who had just died in Idaho, 1,100 miles away.  I spoke to two of them and they are happy that they had participated in their brother's preparation for his departure from here into Eternal Life.  His suffering was intense, but they all knew that is was a shared reality, both physical and earthly, spiritual and heavenly.  

Those of you who are familiar with this blog know that I am not afraid of death.  I am not afraid of pain, chronic or otherwise. When I see people die in the presence of God and in the presence of God as presented to the dying person by and through loving family members I am not moved to tears of sadness.  Dying is a spiritual exercise.  We learn that from the Gospel.  It is there that we hear the warning, "Stay ready."  I once heard a priest who was talking to a church full of simple villagers in a country far, far away, "To stay ready, practice every night. Tell God that it's OK of you don't wake up.  When you wake up thank God sincerely for the new day and tell him that you are ready now and will be again as you lay down to sleep."  So, I do that every day too.  

Finally, I say, remember the last words of the Ave Maria, "...pray for us now and at the hour of our death."  

If we all did that we wouldn't have to cry at funerals.

A PINE BOX IS ALL ANYONE NEEDS

Sister Claire-Odette Rasoanatoandro, SNDS

See that box?  See how small it is?  There's a missionary in there whose heart could not fit inside.  We are pretty sure that it is safely in the hands of our Holy Mother Mary and Her loving Son.  This lady was one of 11 children who are still in her home country of Madagascar.  Not too long before Sister Claire Odette died, her mother died leaving all the children motherless in a small village of Madagascar.  This is a picture of a person who has litterally left everything on the field.  This is a person who followed the words of God Himself when He said, "... for this reason a man (woman too) leaves his mother and father and clings to the [one he/she loves]..." (Genesis)  Missionaries are that way.  They love God so much that leaving everything behind for His sake is their joy.  Jesus is their Husband.  The Church is their house.
We who haven't done that can do nothing but look on in awe at the tight bond that the marriage of a person with Jesus becomes with age.  We think that it takes a lot just at the start.  It is also clear that it takes a lot more to see it through to the end.  Some do, some don't.  Even those who don't are changed for life by the experience.  I know.
If you want to know more about this funeral and about the spirituality that reigned over it, click here

I started this reflection by making a comment about the box.  I want to make you aware of my dedication to simplicity in matters of rites of passage.  The very first article that I posted on this blog was based on the futility of extravagant wedding parties.  Over the years I have had the opportunity to tell people that matrimony is just as valid when you put out $100 as it is when you put out $50,000.  I could have said the same thing about funerals.  You're just as dead in a $100 pine box as you are in a $10,000 mansion of a box.  The grave is still going to be 6x4x6. So, put it on paper.  Tell your family that a pine box is good enough.
When EFR Dion died, we didn't go wild with the funeral expenses.  My dead father didn't seem to mind at all.  We didn't care that there were some who made snide remarks about the cheap looking casket.  We knew that in a couple of days we'd never see that particular item again anyway.  I couldn't figure out what their problem was.  It wasn't their box.
I personally am still flipping the proverbial coin about whether or not to have a traditional wake or a burial at sea or a cheap $100 cremation.  I am torn because I know the spiritual value of a wake.  I know that one or two people are going to come to pray for my sorry soul.  I know that more than that will come to be nice to my wife and children.  We're all familiar with that.  People who haven't seen one another in 35 years like traditional wakes.  They get to check out how much older everyone else looks than they do.  Who knows, two people who thought they really hated one another come together, shake hands and wonder why they've stayed so stupid for so long and walk away from the whole thing in peace.  I've seen that happen.  It's easy to do when you look at the dead guy and realize that you could be next.  Then, of course, I know that there will be some who will come to check to see if it is really me, finally.  You know, I don't want to disappoint them.  So a wake is nice.
The other thing is, I wonder if it is true that my soul will be able to check out those who come and those who don't.  I wonder about that because it could be fun to see how they act.  I could check out if they are crying or not.  If they are, I could nudge them and tell them that I told them not to do that.  That would be cool.  I often wonder about that.
If my soul could check that out, I would sure look around to see who is really praying the rosary and who is not.  I could see if my son is really using the rosary that used to belong to EFR Dion some 85 or 100 years ago.  I don't know what I could so about it, but it would be fun, one way or the other.
The BOX?  Oh, yeah, the box.  That's all I want, is a simple box.  I'm only 5'4", so get it measured and save on materials.  It could even be plastic for all I care.  Maybe by the time I die, wood will really be expensive.  So, hey, cheap, make it cheap.  I mean, for what's in it, you don't have to impoverish yourselves.  Like chairs.  For what goes in them, why are they so expensive?  So, whatever you do, don't be felony crazy and go out and spend 30 - 40 thou on a stupid funeral.
I think I've about talked myself into a traditional wake.  Hmmm, that also make me think about something that is absolutely essential to a traditional wake...cigars...expensive cigars...Cubans, gotta have Cubans. Look, if they're too expensive, maybe you could just put me out on a slab and after the wake, just put me in the oven.  That way you could save a pile of scratch because you wouldn't have to have a grave or anything like that.  Just a $25 plastic lined cardboard box.  Then you could have the Cuban cigars that every traditional wake has to have.  Pheew!  I'm glad I didn't forget that.
Hey,wait...now just wait one single minute, I got a better idea.  Let's buy the cigars now so I can have one before I die.  That way you'll know that you won't have to cry at my funeral.