As Jesus drew near to the city gate of Nain, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of a widowed mother. When Jesus saw her he was moved with pity.
Luke 7:11-17
Jesus could be emotional in the face of human suffering and death. There are a few passages where we hear that Jesus was “moved with the deepest emotion,” literally “from his bowels” in the Greek language of the New Testament. There is even one passage in the Scriptures that mentions that he “cried." In today’s gospel, Jesus was “moved with pity” when he came upon the funeral of “the only son of a widowed mother” outside the city of Nain. “Moved with pity” at the scene of a grieving widowed mother escorting her dead son to his grave, her only son, Jesus could surely foresee the predicament of his own mother when he would be carried from the his cross to his grave!
He was “moved with the deepest emotion” when he came upon a poor man shunned because he was infested with the oozing sores of leprosy. He was “moved with the deepest emotion” when he looked out on a crowd of people, thousands of them, hungry for something to eat and hungry for his teaching. The tears of Jesus are the tears of a loving God for all his people.
The shortest passage in the whole of Scripture contains just three words. It is found in John’s Gospel when Jesus finds out his very close friend, Lazarus, had died. The passage simply says, “And Jesus wept.” It is a powerful reminder that Jesus was not only divine, but fully human as well! Who was this man, this Lazarus, this dear friend, over whom he cried at his passing? In a nutshell he was a member of his small support group: Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary, from the town of Bethany. Jesus used to hang out there when he needed a rest, a little cold water for his tired feet and a good meal. If you pay close attention to this reading, you will noticed how close they were. Here are a few of the sentences where John emphasizes their closeness. “Lord, the one you love is sick” “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus very much.” “See how much he loved him!” They were so close that his friend Mary could chew Jesus out and get away with it! “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died!” Finally, it was when he saw Mary crying that we are told that Jesus began to cry as well!
That story is recorded in the Gospel of John. John’s stories always have two levels: one on the surface that is true and another below the surface, which is even truer still. This intimate story is meant to reveal to us not only how close this group of friends were to each other, but also how intimate God’s relationship is with us! By listening in on their dialogue, we are also taught what they were taught: how much God loves us, how willing God is to give us new life, and how powerful God is over our worst enemy – death itself! By listening in on their dialogue and exchanges, we are able to get a glimpse into our own future - we are able to see where we are headed – toward a new life, an life eternal, on the other side of our earthly deaths!
None of us knows exactly when and how we will die or even what precisely will happen to us when we do. We can either sing with Brenda Lee, “Is This All There Is?” or we can, in faith, trust what we have heard in the gospel today that “we will be raised up on the last day!”
As for me, I choose to believe and I choose to wait in joyful hope for that great experience that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor the human mind can ever imagine.”
Those who were starving have referred to the next life as a “mountaintop feast” with all you could ever want to eat and drink. The very poor have referred to it as a place where the “streets are paved with gold.” Some Moslems say it is where every martyr will be awarded "seventy virgins." Those who suffered from loss and disease refer to it as a place “where there is no pain and every tear will be wiped away.”
For me all these images fail. I am not interested in big buffets, gaudy gold streets, feeling nothing or even having to deal with a big bunch of virgins! I like the idea of just simply basking in the peace and love of God - with nothing to prove, nothing to dread and nothing to regret!
Like St. Paul said, we “walk by faith and not by sight” when it comes to the afterlife. But I do believe that some of us do get glimpses of the glory to come – moments when heaven breakthrough for a millisecond. That could be what we read about many weeks ago on the mountain of transfiguration. That could be what Thomas Merton experienced on the corner of 4th and Walnut many years ago when people appeared to be “walking around like the sun.” That could be what my mother experienced when angels and her dead brother and sisters came to meet her at the foot of her bed shortly before she died. That could be those ecstatic experiences, those glimpses of glory, that many of the great saints were blessed with throughout history.
No, we can’t prove any of this! We are left to wait in faith and joyful hope, and, yes, appear to be foolish in the eyes of a world that thinks the only reality worth trusting is what we can see, touch, feel and taste!
I cannot leave this homily today without mentioning the Church's teaching about what we call "Purgatory," often explained as a "place" between heaven and hell to which one goes after death if one has been good, but not good enough! Personally, I think a better word to use is "purgation," a spiritual process one goes through, not a physical place, to be "totally purified before entering Heaven." Here is what the adult Catechism of the Catholic Church actually says.
“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1030)
In Scriptural language, "fire" is often used as a symbol for "cleansing." In this regard, the concept of "purgation" is certainly not about some kind of painful "torture" whereby God "gets even with us for our failures!" Being no longer in the dimensions of "time and space," it cannot be "about days, weeks, months or years." I believe that it is more like a "painful embarrassment" when we come face to face with the goodness of God and realize how far we fell short in our own actions and understanding - an eye-opening experience during which we are purified for our entry into heaven. Yes, I believe that we can assist those going through this process with our prayers!
Remember, most of us learned about things like "Purgatory" and "sin" from the Baltimore Catechism when we were children. Back then it was presented to us in language and images that children could understand. Today, "without throwing out the baby with the bathwater," as adults we can still believe this concept, but hopefully by using more sophisticated and adult spiritual language to explain it! We just need to grow up and do the hard work required!
