Remembering our dead

WE should be most thankful that as a people, we Filipinos still have a deep and strong devotion to those of our brothers and sisters who have gone ahead of us to eternal life. Sad to say, in some places that are often blighted by the virus of the so-called progress and modernity, such regard for the dead is waning, if not is practically lost.

We know in our heart of hearts that the death of a person never means some kind of banishment not only from our memory but also from existence itself. We somehow believe, even before we are taught by our Christian faith, that the dead continue to live on, but in another state which we actually call as our definitive life for all eternity.

We believe that our life here on earth is not the definitive one. It is something like a training and testing ground for our definitive life with our Creator. And we are convinced that we are not making up this belief.

Just the same, we have to revisit and restrengthen our belief in the Christian doctrine of our faith about the so-called ‘Last Things.’ In fact, we need to feel at home with it, since it would certainly play an important role on how to arrange and direct our life here on earth.

The doctrine of the ‘Last Things’ refers to what would happen to us at the end of our life here on earth. These ‘Last Things’ are death, judgment, hell and heaven, with purgatory as a transitory state.

With death, I suppose we cannot question that anymore. It is a daily occurrence. But we may have to exert some effort to believe in the Christian faith about judgment, hell and heaven.

Yes, there are truly such things. Even if we are to go by our human reasoning alone, we would find our life here on earth completely useless and meaningless if there would be no judgment, hell and heaven.

But we have to be careful with tackling this matter with our reason alone. Without the light of faith, our reason can give us all sorts of explanations. It can lead us to some exciting insights but in the end, it can lead us nowhere. It can only give us so much light. It cannot capture everything.

The gospel is full of references to these last things, and we are always encouraged to be watchful in this life so that we tread the right path to our destination. Yes, our life here is like a journey, a pilgrimage to our definitive home which is actually in heaven where God is, from whom we came and to whom we belong.

Said in another way, our life here on earth is all about the ongoing creation of our own selves with God as the Creator and us as our own co-creator with God. That’s because God wants us to correspond to what he wants us to be, that is, to be his image and likeness, to be his children, meant to share in his divine nature and life.

In a sense, our creation is a joint venture between God and us, and the completion of this venture would be at our death and at the end of time when, hopefully, we can, with God’s grace and our effort, truly become God’s image and likeness and the dignity of being God’s children definitively achieved.