New Evangelizers Post: Sleeping Beauties

                               

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of All Souls.

On this day we remember those who have gone before us in death and pray for their quick release from Purgatory. But it also a day for a memento mori where we remember our own death. For all of its macabre trappings, the festival of Halloween at least gets us thinking in this direction. This is not meant to a morbid or maudlin exercise, but one that gives us wisdom. As the Scripture says, “Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” (Psalm 90:12).

Death is the destination all of us are headed. The pastor at church told the story about a vacation he had with some brother priests. They heard of a town where there was some good restaurants and recreation so that got in the car and put the address into the GPS. But something was typed out incorrectly, because when the GPS said, “You have arrived at your destination,” they were parked in front of a cemetery. The pastor said to his friends, “Well, it’s not entirely wrong.”

One day we are going to end up in the grave. We do not know how much time will be afforded us. If I live as long as my mother did, I have less than 20 years left on this Earth. But that is no guarantee. I often come to prayer asking God to change me into the man He is calling to me. But if I know that my time is getting short, I will take the task much more seriously. I remember being a student and putting off projects until the last minute. If we were given extra time I would rarely use it to do more work. Instead, I would put the task off even more. But now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I will get to the task at hand before time runs out.

But even that phrase, “time runs out,” is not an entirely accurate description of what lies ahead. Because the grave is not our final stop. And I don’t mean simply the afterlife where our souls go up to heaven. I mean that even our bodies will not permanently rest in the grave.

Pope Leo XIV recently stated, “Christians do not call burial places ‘necropolises’, that is, ‘cities of the dead,’ but ‘cemeteries,’ which literally means ‘sleeping places,’ places where one rests, awaiting the resurrection.”

“Necropolis” is a Greek word that reflects the pre-Christian thought on death. Going into the grave was a final goodbye and the dead were placed in these “cities” because that is where they would permanently reside. No matter how well you fought the battle of life, death was always going to be the final victor. But it was the early Christians who first used koimeterion to describe their burial cites. Instead of being cities where the dead will reside forever, koimeterion (“cemetary”) is closer translation as “dormitory.” The image is that it is a place of rest before you wake up at the dawn of a new day.

What an audacity our Christian ancestors had!

You can read the whole article here.