For many people, this is the most beautiful season of the year. Nature decks itself out in splendid and vibrant colors. Unlike the colors of spring, also very beautiful, these are the so-called “hot” colors of oranges and yellows and reds and vermilions. However, all of this color is also a sign that it won’t be long before old man winter is back with us. Nature is dying, or at least, going into hibernation.
The paradox that this season places before us is worthy of prayerful meditation. All of the beauty of autumn is the product of dying. Is there any other situation in which we would equate the two; i.e. death and beauty? While I have heard people say that so-and-so died a beautiful death, we ordinarily don’t equate death with beauty. Over the past few days, I have received notice that a cousin has died, the mother of one of my Bible students died, and the aunt and godmother of a cousin died. In each instance, the message was delivered with grief very evident. I don’t think any of the messages was considered a source of beauty.
In today’s first reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7). This passage reaffirms a truth that St. Paul constantly preaches. We were dead, but now we are alive in Christ Jesus.
For the children of Israel, death means something other than the cessation of our mortal body’s heart and brain activity. Death for these people was life without God. St. Paul speaks of being dead in our transgressions, those very transgressions being the cause of separation from God. An honest appraisal of our efforts to keep the commandments and to avoid sin brings with it the realization that we are sinners all. However, even though we are sinners, we have not been separated from God because Jesus has raised us up by grace. As long as we cling to this belief, we shall never die. Death itself has been put to death, and we have been released from its grip. As time marches on and as we continue to make our way to our graves, the grace we have acquired through faith makes us beautiful in the eyes of God. It is that beauty which will open the gates of heaven for us when we come to the end of our life on this earth.
Even the beauties of nature will never match that beautiful scene!
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator