Circle of Life

The souls of the just are in the hands of God,

and no torment shall touch them.

Those are the words from our first reading, the Book of Wisdom,

and are regularly chosen for the Mass of the Resurrection

or Mass of the Dead for people

who are about to bury their loved ones. 

Today we celebrate what we call

All Souls or Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.

When I think of this subject,

it is one of my favorite feast days, yesterday and today. 

We talk about it in Celtic spirituality

and I saw life through this lens that I grew up with.

Life is like a circle and it goes like this.

We are born into this world,

we are born in a bed and that bed is all we know.

And our mother and that is all we know.

And then we grow up a little bit more

and it becomes a whole room,

and that room then slowly

becomes a whole house,

and eventually the whole house is our world.

Then we start to move out into the street,

into the neighborhood, and then to the city,

then to the state, and eventually the whole country,

and then eventually the whole world.

Then somewhere along the line when we get a little older,

we stop wanting to travel internationally.

And our world gets just a little bit smaller.

Then we stop wanting to travel by airplane

and it only is where our car can take us

around the state or county.

Eventually we do not want to travel very far,

only keep it to daylight,

and so then it becomes the city or the town that we are in.

Eventually then we do not want to drive at all

and we become just go out to the street.

Eventually the street becomes the house,

and the house becomes a room,

and the room becomes a bed,

and then we go home to the Lord.

That is the natural circle of life.

It is one in which we all go through. 

The key to life is not to embrace

one step before it comes to us,

nor to fight it too hard when

that next stage comes to us.

That delicate balance between embracing the reality

and still fighting for as long as possible

to stay in the wider circle.

That circle is the circle of life.

There are things of course that happen to us

that accelerate us through several of those stages.

We move from traveling the world to our neighborhood

all at once because of an illness. 

Then we are left to bed maybe faster than we had figured.

That circle of life describes what it is, our journey of life

but it is not the whole story.

It makes it sound like the circle ends,

but it actually does not.

It is more of a spiral that takes us to another dimension

because we believe that this life is not the end.

It is not a dead end, but it is a transition

to eternal life, our final destiny.

In that way, the poet and theologian,

John O'Donohue from Ireland, 

puts it more beautifully by saying that

when we are born into this world we become a traveler.

We move from the invisible to the visible,

and then we travel through this world.

When we die, we become a traveler again

from the visible to the invisible.

That is the core of our faith, my friends,

that this life here on earth is part of a larger life;

that is in the context of eternal life.

Our ultimate destination is eternal life with God in heaven.

Everything we do here,

while it matters a great deal while we are here,

it is in the light of all eternity that it matters the most.

While we do not want to diminish our world here,

we want to live it to the fullest,

but we also do it with the view of eternal life in mind.

It is important for us to understand that reality

and that makes a great deal of difference.

That is what we celebrate here

at this altar each and every Sunday.

That the Lord Jesus came to tell us

that this end is not the end

but a transition into eternal life,

and that the resurrection is the last work.

Our final destiny is eternal life.

That not only brings us comfort

but gives us purpose in life,

that eternal life is the proper place for us

and this is but a journey to that.

I could talk about this subject for hours

because I have just finished about book,

waiting it to be published, on death and dying.

But here is the part that I have absolutely no doubt about.

I have been at the deathbed of hundreds of people

in my 25 years of ministry and

I have been there for the last breath for dozens of people.

I will tell you there is no sinew of my body

that doubts the resurrection is real

because I have witnessed firsthand what it looks like.

They cannot mimic each other

because they did not know each other

but they all have the same exact thing that they do.

They look at me as I give them the anointing of the last rites.

They will look past me, they will smile,

and they will look over my shoulder

and they recognize somebody that has gone before them.

We know that it is the angels and saints who come to greet them,

to present them to God.

They go with a smile on their face, and they let go.

That is the transition from this world into the next.

It is not a dead end.

It is but a birthplace for eternal life.

Now, why is that so important?

Because it gives meaning and purpose to our life here and now.

No matter what age,

whether we are young or whether we are old.

That does not matter.

What it matters is that we know that

we have a important purpose in our life here and now.

We live it in light of that eternal journey home.

And so, we need to do it with great joy.

Today we celebrate the commemoration of all the faithful departed.

In the Feast of All the saints yesterday

were we recognize all the saints that are formally recognized

by the Church in a holy way of life.

Today, we recognize all the other ones who have gone before.

Not formal saints, but who died faithful to the Lord to the end.

And so we, we commemorate them.

Why? Because it is what we do here at this table.

Every Sunday at this table, in fact, we invite them to be with us.

All the communion of saints to join us at this very celebration.

This becomes our touchpoint each and every week.

That together with all the communion of saints

who have died and all of us as the communion of saints here,

we come to celebrate the presence of Christ.

The resurrection is the last word, not death.

There is a metaphor I use at funerals to help with this reality of life.

Some of you have been at funerals that I have done

and I have used it a lot.

It is requested by many of you.

Here is the metaphor,

as it speaks of this last leg of the journey home.

Imagine yourself standing on a dock where a ship,

one of those old-time ships,

is waiting for the wind to come.

And just then the wind comes,

the captain gives his orders,

and down goes the sails and

the wind catches the sails and

takes the ship out of the safe harbor into the open sea.

As it does, it gets smaller and smaller

as it heads out into the horizon.

And someone shouts from the dock,

"There she goes, there she goes."

Now, there is another dock where that ship is expected.

And on the first sight of their horizon,

with great joy and jubilation, they say,

"Here she comes, here she comes."

You see, my friends, we are on a dock that we call Earth.

And when our loved ones die,

we bid farewell to them as

they head out into their eternal horizon.

But we believe that all our ancestors

and all the angels and saints who have died before us

are at that Heavenly Dock and

wait with great joy and jubilation

to welcome them home to their eternal destiny.

For our part, we remain here for now.

Every one of us will take that final journey home someday.

But until then, we are called to live this circle of life well.

We are called to live it fully,

embracing every moment and

savor every moment for what it is,

whatever part of the journey

or the stage of this circle we are on.

To never to embrace the next too soon,

nor to resist it too much.

But to embrace it knowing that our final destiny,

my friends, is eternal life.

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

I wrote a book on the subject,

waiting for it to be published.

And at the end of every chapter,

I closed with a poem.

And I want finish this homily with one of those poems:

I wrote at the very beginning talking about this circle of life.

So I ask you to maybe close your eyes,

if you are comfortable,

and listen carefully to the words of this song.

A blessing for those who wonder if this is the end.

A Blessing for Those Who Wonder If This Is the End

You are not running out of time.

You are being gathered.

Drawn not to an ending

but to the widening of your soul’s true horizon.

Death has never had the final word.

Even Christ, wrapped in linen,

did not lie still for long.

The silence of the tomb

was the womb of forever.

We are not rescued from the cross—

but we are redeemed by it.

And the same hands

that carried Jesus through

will carry you too—

not around the valley of death,

but through it

into a light no shadow can darken.

So when you lose someone you love,

do not say goodbye too quickly.

Let your heart say,

“Until we meet again.”

For we belong to a God

who forgets no name,

and loses no one.

Our days may be numbered,

but our lives are not small.

You were never meant to shrink

into the narrow confines of a grave,

but to expand beyond it—

into the expanse of eternity.

So walk this moment gently.

Do not hurry through it.

Let the ache of parting

become the echo of hope.

And when grief tightens your chest,

remember:

This is not the end.

You are not a fleeting breath.

You are a soul in motion—

and always have been.

Now the One who called you

will not stop calling

until you are

home.

Amen.