TASTE  DEATH 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Taste Death.”

Today’s 3 readings have a lot to talk about - and think about - like marriage, and divorce and children: family. I’d like to reflect on a tiny comment in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews - which we were taught was probably a homily - and a very long one at that.

The comment was “taste death” - which I made the title of this homily.

Taste death. That’s a November theme more than a today theme - November when the leaves have died - but not without a flair of bright red colors before they fall to the ground and crumble. November is All Souls Day and a time to remember our dead. Not October…. However, I spotted those 2 words that hit me last night as I began working on this homily: “Taste Death.”

Here is the comment in context: “Brothers and sisters: He ‘for a little while’ was made ‘lower than the angels,’ that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

The author is saying that God for a little while - became lower than the angels. Then in Christ Jesus God became one of us - human - and God tasted death for everyone and like every one of us.

                                                               Rembrandt

I don’t know about you - but that means a lot to me - that God knows - not only what it is like to be human - but that God knows - what it means - to taste death.

WHO’S ON YOUR LIST

At some point - at various points in our lives - we taste death.

Our own - when we have an operation coming up - as well as those around us.

Whose death have you tasted?  What death cards are tucked into the edge of pictures in your bedroom?  Does anyone have a prayer book - that has grown fat with the years - with death cards from wakes and funerals we attended?

Is anyone here like the man I met in a parish in a small town in Ohio? He said his wife had died 6 years and 234 days ago - and he was still counting.

Evidently, he never forgot his wife. I have never forgot that comment. I’ve often wondered what that love story was about.

When we’re young - death is not in the picture - death is not in the front windshield of our car - or our rear view mirror - even after there is a story about neighborhood teenagers who were killed in a car accident.

These deaths in Oregon will not have their impact on other college kids - like they’ll have on college presidents and some teachers.

I was never a soldier - sailor - marine - or air force person. So I don’t know what it means to see war or training for war or have been in battle or bombing or what have you. Yet  - like everyone - I feel the horror of those who die  while trying to immigrate to a safer place for family stability and a decent life.

So that comment from our Second Reading triggered the question what’s it like to taste death.

FIRST DEATH

Poets talk about first kiss, first mystery, first death.

For me it was Jimmy Hennessey in our grammar school class - probably around the fourth grade.  I remember the silence and the sadness - wearing our school uniforms on a long line to Jimmy’s front parlor to see him in a casket  but it didn’t hit me like it hit his family - especially his parents.

When my nephew Michael died suddenly of cancer when he was 15 - and his parents only had 4 days’ notice - it was then I looked back to what Jimmy Hennessey’s parents must have gone through.

With death there is a lot of looking back - and looking back for a long time.

Then there are all these other thoughts and feelings that hit us.

Regrets - the missed opportunities - sometimes the hurts… buried with the buried person. We’ve all heard in sermons - sometimes with guilt - Paul Tsongas’  comment: “No one on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time on my business." New York Times, Jan. 14, 1987

I’ve read that the first death we experience is the key one - after that - the first death enters into how we experience the second death - and on and on and on. I sense that is true at times - and not true at times. It’s an all depends.

I sense that there is a lot of Deja vie when it comes to a viewing in a funeral parlor.

My first real experience was my dad’s death - when I was 29. I discovered the great gratitude I felt that as priest I could do my father’s funeral - and help my mom and our family.

Recently I found out that when my dad was a young man - single - in New York City he had to take a train out to Pittsburgh to get his brother - also single - who had died in a construction accident. He had to take the body in a casket to Portland Maine for a burial where his 2 younger sisters were buried - both of whom were nuns - who died of TB. I wish I had known these stories better so that I could have talked with my dad while he was still alive. I would have said, “What was all that like? What were your feelings?

Maybe that sentence in today’s second reading hit me because I had a tough funeral right here in this church at 9 AM yesterday morning.

As priests we experience death big time. Father Flynn and Father Krastel spend all kinds of time with the sick and the dying at the hospital. How does that affect them - and us. What about those who do hospice and work and life with cancer patients.

I assume the key is not to become cold to death - but personal, real - and like the God text I mentioned in our Second Reading: never to forget what it’s like to taste death.

Families taste death - and friends of the family feel it as well.

It is our call to help each other when death hits home.  I don’t know how many wakes and funerals I’ve met folks who simply said, “We’re neighbors.”

THEN THERE IS THE METAPHOR OF DEATH

Then there are all those deadly experiences called “Life”.

Families taste the metaphor of death - divorce, silence, screaming, hurt.

It’s hard to bury our feelings - especially resentments and bitterness.

Today in Rome the Synod on the family begins. It has been in discussions for two years now and they will spend close to  3 weeks on all kinds of topics - divorce, wonderful families, broken families, remarriage, communion - helping people trying to pick up the pieces and start again.

We are people of faith - believing and hoping in life - after death.

How as church and society can we help people rise from a marriage that died and people have been burnt - for all kinds of reasons - sin, stupidity, selfishness, immaturity - or just simply, “I wasn’t thinking at that time in my life. Or we tried and tried, but it just didn’t work.”

At the opening Mass at that synod on the family in Rome today, I assume they will have today’s readings - and the preacher will talk about divorce and marriage from today’s first and third readings.

I assume nobody will preach on death - but that’s what hit me.

You heard today’s readings. What hit you.

 You witnessed the Pope just coming to our country. What did his visit say to you?  I thought it was a huge moment of grace for us Catholics - and I hope you are encouraging any family members who have dropped out, “Come home. You’ll be welcomed.”

CONCLUSION

I hope all of us these next 3 weeks will have our own family synod and we will do all we can to avoid what kills family life - and put into practice what gives life to our relationships and our families.

Of course we taste death at times. Taste resurrection and new life as well.