The Dead are not Separated from Us

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St. Augustine uttered that; ‘From the moment a man begins to exist in a body which is destined to die, he is involved all the time in a process whose end is death.” This mystery of death confronts us with such questions on integrity of eternal life. Thus, no other thing does man have less than reflection of death; man’s wisdom remains not in the meditation of death but life.Battista Mondin disparages this as distinctive of our so-called advanced society.

One day at home, I started a debate on death and you cannot visualize the magnitude with which my parent shut me down, calling me ‘sick’. This is how we detest death; we all feel inexorable, dreadful and fearful at its thought.  Yet whether we deliberate on it or not, it awaits us in store. It is something not inessential to us. If you have not beheld the sight of someone who dies, then I invite you to the grasp that life is a course of becoming that gently yields to death.

This separation of our loved is excruciating and sometimes even wounding. When it strikes, it indeed leaves abysses which cannot be filled. But Christ our Lord and master conquered death and gave us a new hope. Therefore, as St. Paul proclaims, nothing, not even death or pain, will separate us from the infinite love of God; either we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

In John: 10:10, Jesus proclaims, “I have come to bring life and life to the full.” God, through His boundless goodness was pleased to raise man by grace to the level of eternity. Jesus Christ is sign of His abundant love. Thus, Jesus Christ sustains and nourishes not only to our material needs but enhances the dignity of mankind beyond the measure of any created reality. Christ makes us noble, worthy sharers and partakers in His divine nature. He, in the operations of his sacraments, raises man to the state of divine grace. This is the charity of God’s profound goodness to man. Although sin distracts this magnificent relationship, Christ our mediator continues with his salvific mission of mercy to endow man with the richness his grace.

Our faith professes to the belief in the resurrection of the dead and communion of saints. When our brother and sisters die, it is noble of us to pray for them. The Church honorably lauds the saints on the 1stNovember, recognizing that all the saints are have a share in the glory of God. However, we are reminded that not all the departed are saints. This may illuminate why the Church reserves the 2nd November for the commemoration of the departed. Further, she demands the month of November as a time when each one of us (pilgrim church) can take time to pray for those who have gone before us.

The African and indigenous notions of death is in fact implanted in a rich understanding. The connection of the dead to us is not estranged by the fact of death, but they continue to live and they remain part of us. The libations on one hand served not merely to placate the dead, but it ensured a continued co-existence between the living and the dead. This belief is very patent in the catholic faith; the dead are not dead. The hope of life is offered us that death is neither the end nor a separation.

The dead are people who were once like us and no doubt one day, we will be like them. It is not the end of us; it is the very condition for the prospect of eternal life. It is a passage and through it we stand a possibility of a wondrous union with God. I therefore beseech you to join in praying for those who have gone before us, knowing that when we will be like them, we will surely taste the goodness of the Lord. Particularly in this month of November, let us remember the many people dying in wars, our relatives, parents, brothers and sisters, children and friends who have gone before us, and offer them to God.

KENETH ETIGU

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