Christians are different on death.
Much to the confusion of
our world, we celebrate death; we speak positively about passing on.
Christians honour death-days. Tonight for example, we celebrate St. Francis’
departure to what we perceive as a better place, with a dead and risen
Lord.
Because, for believers,
dying is rising!
Death is, for disciples,
the beginning of service, a movement toward relationship, and the manifestation
of the most important fruit of all, love.
Over the past few months
I have had some dark thoughts around dying.
I have wondered: What if the Church changed? What if the People of God, universally,
adopted the Franciscan ideal (which is nothing other than the gospel);
would the Franciscan Orders and charism become irrelevant? Would we as a Franciscan Order, after 800
years, meet our own death?
I think, fundamentally,
the answer is yes we would but in faith I feel secure in this vocation because I
also doubt. I doubt the ability of the Church or the Order to achieve the
ideal; I trust that St. Francis’ vision and the gospel will always be radical, hoped
for, for us all to strive toward, rather than be satisfied in us. I hope, and that is why I can call myself a
Christian, but like St. Thomas I doubt. We
all know that change is coming in the Church, but some of us need to touch the
mark of the nails, so to speak, before we can truly believe.
This week Pope Francis
expressed his hope for the Church as she attempts reform and renewal, and oddly
enough his hopes were based on the hopes of our Holy Seraphic Father Francis I
(of Assisi).
On his namesake, the “bishop
of Rome” states:
“St. Francis of Assisi is
great because he is everything. He is a man who wants to do things, wants to
build, he founded an Order and its rules, he is an itinerant and a missionary,
a poet and a prophet, he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it
out. He loves nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying
in the sky. But above all St. Francis loved people, children, old people,
women. He is our most shining example of
agape,” love.
St. Francis, in others
words, exudes an ideal.
And the Pope continues:
"Francis wanted a
mendicant Order and an itinerant one; Missionaries who wanted to meet, listen,
talk, help, to spread faith and love. Especially love. And he dreamed of a poor Church that would
take care of others, receive material aid and use it to support others, with no
concern for itself. 800 years have passed
since then and times have changed, but the ideal of a missionary, poor Church
is still more than valid. This is still the Church that Jesus and his disciples
preached about."
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This ideal, in other
words, persists. It will never go
away. Christians, and especially
Franciscans, must aspire to the poverty of Jesus Christ – an ideal we must
hope to immolate.
The teachings of Jesus,
that St. Francis put above all other “prescriptions”, remain the lifeblood of
the People of God. Yet, it is only when dying to ourselves that we begin to
understand our Lord’s counsels.
Not as individuals do we
come to the truth (and beauty and goodness) but together, and only together are
we truly free. It is only when we aspire
beyond our own deadly wants that we begin to know the real needs of others and to
do what Jesus says to do, to wash feet.
On his deathbed, on this
very night many moons ago, St. Francis told his companions “I have done what is
mine to do, may Christ teach you what is yours’.”
St.
Francis’ life, and his particular vocation, is over. He died; now we must live as called. Christ, in like and purer manner, died and
set us free, free to follow his lead, free to discover each other – to serve,
to relate, and to love.
May we
listen to Francis and follow our Lord’s example by dying to ourselves. May we rejoice in what death has accomplished,
and do what is ours, in particular, to do.
Above and beyond all else, may we love as we are loved.
