Death and Life

Today, August 1, 2020, at 3:00PM I celebrated the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick for Sr. Asuncion Marie, SSpSAp at the Pink Sisters Tagaytay. Right after the anointing rites, we proceeded to their receiving room for a short refreshment. After a few minutes of taking our merienda and a small chit chat with the nuns were rushing to her room. One nun came to inform Mother Superior that Mother Asuncion just passed away. Literally a few minutes after I officiated the Sacrament of anointing.

This experience is a first for me and it is as powerful as death itself. It is my first time to enter the modest convent infirmaries and my first to officiate the rite of anointing and the rite of the commendation of the deceased which came after the other. It is a very powerful image for me because earlier this morning, I said mass at the same convent and the content of my homily was death; reflecting the Gospel for today which is the death of John the Baptist.

In this Homily, I made mention that death is the fear of loneliness. I even quoted from Pope Benedict’s Book Introduction to Christianity: “In truth—one thing is certain: there exists a night into whose solitude no voice reaches; there is a door through which we can only walk alone—the door of death. In the last analysis all the fear in the world is fear of this loneliness. From this point of view, it is possible to understand why the Old Testament has only one word for hell and death, the word sheol; it regards them as ultimately identical. Death is absolute loneliness. But the loneliness into which love can no longer advance is—hell.”

For me, as I was reflecting about death last night for my homily, and this afternoon’s glorious moment for Sister Asuncion Marie were no coincident. I believe God is leading me to reflect that all death is certain and what makes difference in certainty is the life being lived everyday.

Sister Asuncion is certainly on her way to the place she was promised of in Baptism and a place she worthily earned in her lifetime as she devoted her life to perpetual adoration. She is on her way to a lonely journey, one which is not certain and absolute because Christ will meet her and shall be her assurance forever.

Despite the sisters surrounding her deathbed crying, the glorious reality of that moment was that she was going to lonely journey. Yes we accompany her through our prayers, and it can be a comfort for her. Yet, this loneliness could only be put off when it is Jesus himself who comes to her aid.

In one of the points of my homily this morning, I made mention of the exemplariness of death; death by example. In a world where death is facilitated and aborted prematurely, her death is indeed a divine death. It is a death that celebrates the passing of time and a death that replicates her utmost “yes” to Jesus forever.

I am grateful that I get to be the priest to lift her soul to God in the here and now, and to forgive her sins. This is what I feel most unworthy about: that I forgive the sins of a woman who dedicated her life entirely to kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament all her days.

Yet I see this moment, both my presence at her deathbed and her death itself as a moment of passing her story of faithfulness to all of us who were there. It is a moment of commissioning; as if telling us death is not the end. It is the beginning. Goodbyes are not about endings but beginnings.