“Having Memories and Gratitude!”

All Souls Day

“Stranger, call this not a place of fear and gloom.

To me it is a pleasant spot, it is my Husband’s tomb.

          We gather here tonight not in gloom and doom but in hope; to remember our loved ones and have gratitude for their lives among us.

          The Japanese film After Life takes place in a drab public building that serves as purgatory.  Here those who have died come to perform one appointed task.  Each person has to choose one memory out of his or her entire lifetime to take with them for all eternity.  All other earthly memories will be forgotten.  The film’s director interviewed hundreds of elderly people to discover what those memories might be.  They were as simple and profound as the taste of rice balls, the beauty of clouds, the joy of a young girl whose brother had bought her a new dress for the dance.  Every memory was an affirmation of the gift of life.

          Today we remember our loved ones who have died.  And we affirm the precious gift of their lives.  The Book of Wisdom prefigures our Christian belief in the afterlife by asserting that the just are in God’s hands where no suffering can harm them.

          Like gold tried by fire, they have passed through trials of every kind to emerge into eternal reward.  The foolish may speculate that the dead no longer exist.  But the wise person knows that those who have struggled for holiness now shine like sparks in stubble.

          At the Last Supper, the night before he died, Jesus prayed that his disciples would one day be in heaven with him.  He prayed that they would know the love of the Father which had been his “before the foundation of the world” and would last forever.  It is this love that binds Jesus and his friends, living and dead, in divine communion with the Father.

          As a sign of our participation in that indestructible love, we might reflect today on one particular memory of a husband or wife, parent or child, sister or brother, grandparent, teacher or friend who has died.  Write the memory down or share it with someone.  Offer a prayer of gratitude for the memory, for the person, for the love that continues to bind you together.

          As we take leave of our loved one, let us not think of this time as gloom and doom, but rather, a time of hope, a time of memory, a time of thanksgiving for all that God gave us in the life of the person whom we celebrate tonight.