Faith, hope and love are stronger than death

We need this reminder

Sheila Liaugminas | Nov 2 2017 | comment

Lately, Pope Francis has been talking about death in messages like this one just over a week ago.

Noting that death is a reality that modern civilization “tends, more and more, to set aside” and not reflect upon, Pope Francis said that for believers death is actually “a door” and a call to live for something greater.

Christians endearingly celebrate All Souls Day and ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’, remembering their deceased loved ones in special prayers and liturgies, for their ‘eternal rest’ and ‘life everlasting’. Some populations celebrate it as Día de los Muertos, a day when families create traditional altars in honor of their beloved departed, with photos, memorabilia, their favorite foods and traditional Pan de Muerto, or ‘bread of the dead’. These altars are set up at cemeteries throughout the world including Mexico, Central and South America and Europe, with processions and music taking the faithful from one to another.

In northern Romania, one of Europe’s last remaining peasant cultures still observes a similar centuries-old tradition on this occasion. Villagers decorate and light candles on graves, many with already lavishly carved wooden grave markers in the ‘Merry Cemetery’. It’s a celebration of life, faith and hope in resurrection.

They observe these traditions because they live what they believe, that life is sacred and eternal. It’s distinctly counter-cultural to prevailing forces pushing a utilitarian ideology of human existence that exalts abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide as a ‘choice’ to eliminate suffering and inconvenience when each diminishes us all.

Pope Francis told people to prepare for death, which had to be a startling message for the current culture. And on Wednesday, when he greets and addresses the large crowd assembled in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly address, he shared what he would be doing on All Souls Day, inviting anyone willing to join him.

Before concluding his address, the Pope reminded the faithful that he would be travelling to the American Cemetery of Nettuno, South of Rome and then to the Fosse Ardeatine National Monument on November 2nd to mark the feast on Feast of all Souls. Pope Francis, said,” I ask you to accompany me with prayer in these two stages of memory and suffrage for the victims of war and violence. Wars produce nothing but cemeteries and death: that is why I wanted to give this sign at a time when our humanity seems not to have learned the lesson or does not want to learn it.” (Emphasis added.)

Sheila Liaugminas writes from Chicago. She is a journalist, author and host of A Closer Look on Relevant Radio

November 3, 2017

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." That's Woody Allen, quoted by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, at the opening of his wonderful lecture on "Cultural climate change", delivered in New York during the summer and republished today on MercatorNet. "Well, that's how it seems sometimes," he adds to Allen's wisecrack, but that's where the pessimism ends. What follows is a realistic but also optimistic survey of religion in society. Rabbi Sacks is a welcome voice of faith and reason in public life today.

In other articles: Law professor Steven Smith pinpoints the issue behind the pending US Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop, and similar cases involving vendors who have declined on religious grounds to provide particular message-conveying services for same-sex weddings; Michael Cook shows why there might yet be a 'No' majority in Australia's same-sex marriage referendum; Marcus Roberts looks at what is feeding the opioid epidemic; and Rafael Hurtado highlights a charming animated film about an ordinary British couple of last century: Ethel and Ernest: a True Story. Something to look forward to!