Fr. José Juan Sánchez Jácome / ACN.- We become aware of the need for faith in the face of difficulties and in the critical moments of life, such as when we face the death of our loved ones. Definitely, we cannot handle that pain alone, and when we feel humanly overwhelmed, without knowing how to do it properly, we simply open our hearts, lay down our resistances, and cry out to heaven to be sustained in those moments of suffering.
Despite the rebellion and questions we may experience, we try to channel our pain through faith. In this way, we come to live from faith, as a Christian community, the celebrations and rites of the funerals of our deceased faithful.
For a priest, it is very difficult in those moments not to be moved and to overlook the tears and pain of the families; truly moving scenes of great suffering are experienced. But despite this atmosphere of sadness and pain, we must keep in mind that the Mass being celebrated is fundamentally for our deceased, not solely for the mourners.
We come to express regarding the deceased person that “they have rested,” although we recognize that we are left very tired, due to what is experienced in attending to the sick in their crises and agony, as well as what it means for us to say goodbye to our loved ones. Physical and spiritual exhaustion predominate in that moment, but despite being left exhausted, we have to continue drawing strength from the depths because prayer for the deceased is urgent.
That is why, in Masses with the body present and in novenas, we do not address only the family members to console and sustain them in faith, but we address the mourners to ask them to pray with us and to be strong, recognizing, of course, that we are left very weak when the departure of our loved ones arrives. But in any case, if it is about consoling them, it is not to put them at the center of a celebration like this, but to ask them to trust in God’s strength to continue commending our faithful deceased.
If they made every effort and did everything possible to accompany their loved ones in their final moments and in the hour of agony, that strength must be maintained to commend the soul of our loved ones to God’s mercy.
Therefore, despite the emotional state experienced, we must keep in mind that care for our deceased must continue to be provided, especially now the spiritual care that at the same time sustains us in those moments by allowing the Lord to be present in our grief.
Our deceased felt wrapped and blessed with our affection, concern, and attentions in their final moments, so now we cannot abruptly stop those spiritual cares due to our emotional state, but we must remain united by praying for them and placing them in God’s blessed hands.
Certainly, in the face of the death of a loved one, as we have said, we are left affected and with great suffering. In that moment, we are the ones who need someone to embrace us, console us, and share this pain with us. But we must not forget that our deceased still need us. It is the moment to be strong and pray for them.
Our prayer has the purpose of supplicating to God that He receive them in His kingdom, that He purify them, that He forgive the sins they may have committed, and that He fulfill in them the longing with which they died to reach the eternal homeland. At the same time that we ask that they be admitted to the kingdom of heaven, we express to the Lord our gratitude for all the affection, attentions, and blessings we received from these family members.
We express to the Lord our gratitude by recognizing that they were a blessing to us and therefore we supplicate Him to see their good works, what they built in this world, the faith they professed, and the mission they have completed among us.
In addition to asking that they be admitted to the kingdom of heaven and expressing our gratitude for their earthly life, we also have to take a very important step within our spiritual experience in grief: placing our faithful deceased in the Lord’s blessed hands. When the moment of departure arrives, with all the pain that this implies, placing them in God’s hands to recognize, out of the immense love we have for them, that in God they will attain all the promised goods.
That is why the celebration of the Holy Mass is fundamental to live this process and to commend the soul of our faithful deceased, because as Andrea Zambrano states: “When we are at Mass, we must think that all together, the souls in purgatory and the pilgrim souls, we gather around the altar and stretch out our hands to that source which is the pierced heart of Christ. There lies the importance of the dead in the Mass: the center of their world remains the altar, because it is there where the souls of the deceased can enter this mystery.”
Just as in funerals, in novenas, and in anniversaries of the death of our loved ones, also in these days of All Saints we do not stop praying for the deceased and offering the Holy Mass for them, convinced that in the Eucharist we are in communion with them, we are within their reach, for the pilgrim Church, the Church suffering, and the triumphant Church celebrate the same sacrifice of Jesus Christ that is offered in the Holy Mass.
In this way, in the Holy Mass we recognize that no distance prevents us from continuing to love them and continuing to speak with them, for “There are no distances between us. Although we feel far away, we are always close to our deceased. Now only the thickness of the Eucharist separates us. They are on the other side of the path, on the side where there is more light. While the moment to meet arrives, we see each other in the Holy Mass.”
Through faith, we have the capacity to live the death of our loved ones with hope and with a new understanding. Faith will give us the confidence and strength to say goodbye to our loved ones: “Saying goodbye to the brother is like saying we let you go toward God, go into God’s hands” (Pope Francis).
With these beautiful words of Fr. José Luis Martín Descalzo, we honor all our faithful deceased who closed their eyes with the hope of reopening them to contemplate the glory of God:
“And then he saw the light. The light that entered
through all the windows of his life.
He saw that pain precipitated the flight
and understood that death was no longer there.
To die is only to die. Dying comes to an end.
Dying is a fleeting bonfire.
It is crossing a door adrift
and finding what was so sought after.
To finish crying and asking questions;
to see Love without enigmas or mirrors;
to rest from living in tenderness;
to have peace, light, and home together
and to find, leaving pains far away,
the Night-light after so much dark night.”