Taking Delight in the Dreary
Autumn Rain and Hope in Christ
It is a dreary, November day today. On my morning walk with my dogs we all got wet through, and despite it being several hours later, I’m still wet in places. And yet, I couldn’t be happier. I am surrounded by candles, I’m listening to some beautiful cello music, and I have spent my morning writing. There are very few things that make me happier than precisely this set of circumstances. But I want to tell you about a different dreary day.
November 2nd, as many of you know, was All Souls Day. That day too was cold and wet here in Spokane. My school decided we would take that day to do some spiritual works of mercy. We gathered at the local Catholic cemetery to rake leaves and pray for the dead. I decided to leave early so I could say Morning Prayer at the cemetery. It was still dark, but there was a hint of light on the horizon. It is no embellishment to tell you that as the rain came down, there was a gentle mist rising off the cemetery grounds. It was haunting. Not in the sense of ghosts or ghouls, but it was haunted with the presence of Christ, Christ who knows better than any of us what it means to be dead.
Our students were excellent. They raked despite the cold and rain. They raked despite wet feet and fingers turned red by gloves that first let in water and then the cold. We would look at the gravestones, seeing first names we recognized as belonging to our students, and birthdates going all the way back to the mid-nineteenth century. I remember telling them to think of those names as their own, that one day we too would end up here or somewhere similar.
After raking we broke for some hot chocolate and then went back into the cemetery, this time armed not with rakes, but with prayers. I went with our headmaster and a collection of our freshmen, praying a rosary (with 5 or 6 extra decades) stopping at graves and offering those decades for the names we could see. I had taught Purgatorio canto 11 earlier in the week, and so the lines,
This last petition, our dear Lord, is made not for ourselves--for us there is no need-- but for the ones whom we have left behind.
were still echoing in my mind. Dante makes it clear that the souls in Purgatory, as much as they covet our prayers, are not stingy with their own. They pray for us, praying even, for the “last petition” they mention is “deliver us from him who tempts”. They pray for us, in a sense, so that we may have no need of purgation, but may ascend to the Beatific Vision, or at least what can be seen of it before the resurrection, when we die.
Being in that cemetery was a reminder that the dead are always with us. This gives me hope as I near what would have been the 81st birthday of my mother who died just over a year ago. Our dead are not gone and our prayers for them may well be efficacious.
It is now two days later and that moment still sits with me. It makes me unfathomably grateful for my faith. Christ, after all, defeated death. He stole from her her sting, and now, as St. Francis tells us, she be called our sister, our fellow creature who leads us to the next stage before our real lives begin when Christ returns.
So, this November (but really any time) consider going into a graveyard, read the names, and pray for those you meet there.