GRAY
GRANITE GRAVESTONES
INTRODUCTION
Today is All Souls Day.
The title of my homily is, “All Soul’s Day: Gray Granite
Gravestones.”
“Gray Granit Gravestones” I like the sound of those words - obviously.
We see gravestones and graveyards all the time as we go up and down the roads of
life. What thoughts and feelings do they
trigger? And sometimes we unearth our thoughts - when going by gray
graves.
I would assume by having this feast every year - here on
November 2nd - the Church wants us to look under some stones and see
what this feast means to us.
I was wondering how many people will drop into graveyards
today: All Soul’s Day. How many people will travel to a gray granite grave
stone with family names carved into it - and pause to pray - pause to remember.
I would assume the church wants us to do this.
I would assume for starters grave yards should trigger
gratitude. I love Groucho Marx’s old
line, “If your parents didn’t have any kids, chances are you won’t either.”
Well, we’re here and our parents had us and we are
grateful - thankful for the gift of life.
And if we’re at a family plot or old town cemetery - there will be other
family members buried there - to thank and think about.
A FEW OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GRAVEYARDS
Stone is better than wood. How many Western movies have wooden cross
markers for where someone is buried?
Stone is better than wood. Those
wooden markers - crosses - etc. are not going to last like stone lasts. So too
wooden crosses along highways.
More and more people are being cremated and their remains
are kept at home or are simply dropped into the ocean or a bay - without
a marker. No comment - except the comment - that a graveyard with a granite
stone is different than the ocean - and does different to our psyche and
memory.
Next, we live at great distances from where some of our
ancestors are buried.
If possible get to their graves - or close your eyes -
and go there in spirit.
Some people have portable grave yards. Some use a prayer book and have in that
prayer book the significant death cards of a lifetime. And that prayer book
gets fatter with time and aging.
I like the modern practice of flyers with pictures -
handed out in funeral parlors. Some give
a brief photo-biographical look-see of a deceased person. I have a lot of them in zip lock bag. They are from funerals I did in the parish I just left
in Annapolis Maryland.
I would suggest getting a neat box to keep death cards
and flyers in and go through saved pictures from that cardboard box casket or
zip lock bag or those cloth shopping bags. Do that from time to time - like
today - alone or at good moments - like granny baby sitting and show them to
kids and grandkids. Who’s who? Who has
been who in our life?
I believe the theology of Easter and the Resurrection has
certainly been developed since F.X. Durwell’s book on The Resurrection came out in 1960.
I grew up with morning Mass in our church in Brooklyn with every Mass in black
vestments - and they had the same
readings and prayers every time. I was an altar boy all through those years and
saw the dramatic changes in the liturgy and morning Mass from those days till
today.
We express our faith - our hope - and our beliefs in
Christ in a much more glorious and a colorful way today.
Lent used to move us from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. Now Lent moves us Holy Week - to Holy
Thursday, Good Friday and Easter - and keeps on moving us to Ascension, then the Descent of the Holy Spirit and on
and on and onwards.
CONCLUSION
A tiny significant change was calling today, “All Souls
Day” - not “Poor Souls Day” - because
all those who die in Christ we hope and
believe are rich and cleansed - and given a fatted goat to eat and celebrate in
heaven with family and friends and all those who have gone before us.
