Bulletins
March 22, 2015
Download the Bulletin as a PDF“We who are about to die salute you!”
The greeting to the Roman Emperor Claudius in the year 52 A.D. before a particularly elaborate battle of gladiators may have been used only once. The memorable words probably conveyed a kind of desperation on the part of those hoping for clemency from Caesar.
A stout soul can take up the words can make them a Christian prayer. We are all, in a sense, about to die, those of us in danger or under persecution even more so. But we will die gloriously. The world might not honor us at the time, but our end can give glory to God and inspire future Christians. We will die in a state of holiness. We will spend our last days or years with purpose.
How different is this attitude about mortality from the world’s, more and more prevalent in the what St. John Paul II called the “Culture of Death”! Sucking the marrow out of life in drunkenness and promiscuity has been the stuff of popular culture since the 1920s, in total denial of death being the beginning of eternity. When death is the end of fun, then there is no limit what “Carpe diem” might mean to a lonely, hungry, thirsty soul. This latest episode in the deterioration of family life is not much more than the inevitable course of a society that condones unlimited pleasure and that has the technological means to deliver it.
If we recognize our lives as being relatively short, we can make and fulfill lifelong commitments and I can give up something significant for the rest of my life. If I realize that my time is limited I can admit that this life is really a valley of tears from which the Lord has rescued me, turning it into a blessed path to heaven.
Visiting the graves of our loved ones can be an antidote. Praying at my father’s grave reinvigorates my desire for heaven. Even more so, visiting the tomb of a saint puts us in contact with heaven in a beautifully and strangely human way. Before me is a corpse, while the soul with which it was created lives in heaven. How much more so are we filled with a full measure of the Christian spirit when we have the opportunity to visit the tombs of martyrs or at least venerate their relics!
May God bless us with the grace of living and dying well.
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
p.s. My dear mother was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer about two weeks ago and was informed that patients in her condition usually live about six months. Her name is “Ilse” (pronounced ILL-suh). In German it means “vampire slayer”. Just kidding. Please include her and her intentions in your prayers. Our game plan is 1) Be holy. 2) Have fun. 3) Get things in order. Tears come at times of their own choosing and will take care of themselves. In the meantime we have no time anymore for bad desserts!
