The passing of a parent, someone who has been a part of your life your entire life, is a heavy burden – or of a spouse, child, sibling, or anyone especially close to us, each in their own way. At times, it seems to be too much to bear. His or her tangible absence in our lives is still felt years later even amidst the joy of remembering him or her, as it was when I recently visited El Salvador to mark the 10th anniversary of my father being called out of this life.
We began Lent with the sobering reminder of our mortality on Ash Wednesday, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” In the ancient world, the words “memento mori” (remember you must die) were told to those in power as a similar warning that life is fleeting, like all the things of this earth. Eventually death will come for all our loved ones – and it will come for us. And it could come calling at any moment, whether as a sudden surprise or something that is expected; but when it does happen, unconsolable anguish need not be our fate.
Make no mistake, when it comes, however it comes, death will be painful for us or for those who mourn us. Even Jesus wept when He approached the tomb of Lazarus. If this is true for us who are the People of God, think of how much more painful death is, with the potential to crush one’s spirit, if the Lord is not in your life? Conversely, how great is the power of hope in the Lord to save us from despair and lift us up from our suffering.
We began the Lenten season with a reminder that one day our bodies will fail and return to the earth from which we came. We end this seasonal journey of faith, however, with exultation on Easter – rejoicing that this same death, pain, and suffering are transformed to new life in the Risen Christ.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” said Jesus to Martha as she mourned her brother Lazarus, “whoever believes in me, even if he dies, yet will he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” This truth is at the center of our Christian faith and hope – the certainty that, by the love of the Lord who makes all things new and who called Lazarus to come out of the tomb, “life is changed, not ended.” In fact, Scripture and the Christian tradition sometimes speak of the deceased as being “asleep.” For example, Jesus refers to Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus as being asleep, and the Acts of the Apostles does not say that Saint Stephen died when he was stoned, but that “he fell asleep.”
The Lord “is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38). He did not make us for death, but for life – not simply the transitory existence we experience in this world, a life of shadows, but for the fullness of divine life, of real life.
The life that we are born into is a sublime gift, so wonderful, however, that it can blind us to that greater truth. Worldly death, while an occasion for grief, and an evil when it comes other than at its naturally appointed time, is not the evil which we should fear the most. No. The evil we should fear the most is being apart from the One who is Life Himself.
Our life on this earth is not an end in itself – in fact, this was never our final destination in God’s plan – but it is merely a preparation for what is to come. Furthermore, the admonition that we will return to dust, which on first hearing sounds ominous, now should be heard as blessing. Not only are we promised eternal life in the Lord, we will not be imprisoned in our current fallible bodies, but will be perfected with wonderful, glorified bodies.
“When the thought of death lies heavy on our hearts, when we see the dark shadows of evil advancing in our world, when we feel the wounds of selfishness or violence festering in our flesh and in our society, let us not lose heart, but return to the message of this night,” said Pope Francis in his Easter Vigil homily last year. “The light quietly shines forth, even though we are in darkness; the promise of new life and a world finally set free awaits us; and a new beginning, however impossible it might seem, can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death.”
Perhaps the late Holy Father was aware that he was nearing the end of his own earthly life when he shared these inspiring and uplifting words with the world, having experienced many serious health crises in the previous months.
The next day, on Easter Sunday 2025, just hours before he was called to the Father’s House, Pope Francis continued his witness of faith and hope as a final gift to us all, which I hope we all take to heart. “In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery,” he said, “death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever. He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to Him, for He alone can make all things new (cf. Revelation 21:5).”
“Happy Easter to everyone,” were this holy pontiff’s very last public words. With joy in my heart for the love and life of the Risen Lord, and for each of you, I join in and repeat these words. Happy Easter to everyone! Christ is risen; He is truly risen. Alleluia!
(Bishop Evelio Menjivar serves as an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.)
