By A Maria Arul Raja
Chennai: As the fruit of the womb of resurrection, let us daringly engage ourselves with a reflection on the hard reality of DEATH- my death, your death and our death- on the auspicious day of November 02- the All Souls’ Day gratefully remembering all the departed ones.
Dear Friends, I do not know whether my death is going to be an event related to an air crash on the skies or a drowning into deep waters. No one knows whether I am going to be buried with deafening silence or with the blasts of a war zone.
Is it going to be a custodial death with wild violence or composed death with tender nursing care? I have no clues over the nature of my death to be an active death with voluntary offer of the self or a passive death aggressively imposed on to me. Nor could I predict the death of my friends as a gradually anticipated death or unexpectedly a sudden death. Is the death of my dear ones going to be a pre-mature death or belated death? We are totally kept in the dark.
There has been articulate rhetoric about death across the world literature. Death is negatively portrayed as the valley of dry bones, vale of tears, abysmal darkness, or chamber of torture; it is celebrated as the garden of fragrance, resort of divine solace, eternal stillness, or contemplative bliss.
Some say that death is a great leveler. Is it true? The powerful people receive dignified treatment before death and the authoritative ones are honored with state burial after death. The poor migrants are ill-treated before and after death. The so-called untouchables are forced to be buried with social death with the virus of casteism even before the actual death with the virus of Covid-19.
Let us contemplate on the event of death we might have encountered in close proximity through the inner eyes of Ignatian contemplation. The following memories are to be activated in the imagination: the motionless body secreting emissions, the invasion of the insects onto the corpse, the odor of incense sticks, the fragrance of the drying flowers, the sprinkling of the chemical perfumes, loud rhythms of the drum beat, silent cries of the dear ones, the howling of the conch-shells, the stench of the burning human flesh during cremation, the dreadful death-knell of the church bells, well-decorated or shabbily assembled coffin boxes, black vestments, stifled lamentations of well-wishers and loud-mouthed yelling of the inner circle especially at the take-off moment of the body for funeral procession and the uncontrollable outbursts while downing the body into the grave. All these evoke in our hearts the following questions:
Is death a beatific boon or baneful curse? Is it a privileged salvation or absolute decimation? Is it a blissful birth or bitter annihilation? Is it a transition to heavens or the termination into hell? Is it Sunyata (nothingness) or Purnata (fullness)?
Some people decry death with the sense of desolation: “Sarvam dukham, sarvam anityam and sarvam anaatmam!”- Everything is miserably impermanent without any life.
Some others acclaim death with the sense of consolation: “Sarvam aanandam, sarvam nithyam and sarvam aatmam!”- Everything is blissfully permanent with life.
Then why do we weep and wail with cries of lamentation, while encountering the death of our dear and near ones? Is it because we are uprooted from the bond of union with them? Are we afraid of getting alienated, orphaned, widowed, distanced, or eclipsed into the clouds of uncertainty of the future? Is the suddenness of the departure or inevitable nature of death so cruel to the human hearts?
The world of human history, by no means, could ever comfort the inconsolable hearts and the minds of the humans. Only the world of mystery through its faith energies could ever propel the drooping spirit of the humans into future-oriented optimistic engagement with the spirit of resilience.
Let us reread the story of the torture, death and burial of Jesus of Nazareth from the passion narratives. We are alarmed to notice that the death of Jesus was a cruel murder caused by the custodial torture of the uniformed and un-uniformed goondas. The miscarriage of justice was meticulously planned and deliberately executed. There were blatant procedural aberrations both in the religious court as well as in the imperial court in the name of defending the tradition, upholding the law and maintaining the order. Jesus’ murder was, no doubt, a custodial death caused by sadist denial of water and never-ending loss of blood.
It is worthwhile to anticipate the nature of my own death? Is it going to be a casual death or a deliberate death? Is it a termination of life or a process of an initiation of the new lease of life? I wish that my death is a healing touch of humanization for at least a creature.
Let me pray that my death is an act of empowering the marginalized people. Let my death be a source of enabling the muffled voice of the people to break its silence. The breath that I am leaving behind has to be charged with the spirit of healing solidarity with the suffering lots of the people.
My lungful of gasp has to leave behind me the spirit of resilience for those struggling now. Let my death become an energy tonic for everyone in instilling the courage of determination to defeat the darkness of defeatism. Buried into Christ, it is my birth-right to proclaim rather eloquently the following Good News:
My origin is to keep on radiating the life-generating energies of resurrection through my life even from my own rotten corpse stinking from the depths of my grave.
My destiny is to keep on broadcasting the life-protecting vigor of resurrection through my mission even from my decomposed body to the high heavens.
(This is the homily preached by Jesuit Father A Maria Arul Raja for the Mass on November 2, the All Souls Day, at Christ Church,Loyola College, Chennai)