Life After Death
When we talk about “life after death” we have in mind something quite specific. Often referring to it as simply “the afterlife” we mean the life everlasting, our eternal life with God in heaven. There’s another possibility of course, but we like to keep things on a positive note, so for now we’ll keep that other, darker and hotter option on the back burner, as it were. But if we follow the right path, ah, the afterlife… How pleasant and peaceful it will be. How happy we’re going to be for all eternity. Life after death. We might not be looking forward to the “death” part, but the life that comes after must surely be a heck of a lot better than the one we have down here!
While we look forward to our own afterlife, we’re not quite so enthusiastic about the life after death of those we love. The reason is obvious—we can’t quite come to grips with the idea of losing them. Whether it be parents, spouse, friends, the death of a loved one is always a very difficult thing to bear. In today’s Gospel, a mother is faced with such a loss. She is a widow, so she has already experienced the death of her husband. Now she must face the hardest kind of bereavement of all, the death of a child. She is a good woman and well liked by those around her, as we know from the Gospel’s description that “much people of the city was with her.” And now she has fallen on very hard times, because with a husband dead and now a son also, she has no one to provide for her. In those days, a woman couldn’t fend for herself like the independent women of today. A woman needed a man who would take care of his wife and family, seeing to their needs and making sure they had everything he could provide. With no one left, this poor Widow of Nain was in serious trouble, on top of the natural psychological devastation she was feeling at the loss of her boy.
In his commentary on this Gospel, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church, writes of “how quickly the divine compassion was moved at the sorrow of this mother, this widow broken down by both the sufferings and the death of her only son.” To the life-altering astonishment of those around, he commands the boy to rise, and he who was about to be buried in a cold, dark tomb is suddenly recalled to life. And while we may rightfully wonder at the enormity of what has just happened, there is something even more remarkable that we should not overlook. According to St. Ambrose, this miracle has a far more spiritual aspect to it which is even more uplifting. For this widow, encompassed with a multitude of her kinsfolk, is “something more than a poor woman whose tears won from the Lord the resurrection of the young man, her only son.” She is a type, a foreshadowing, of our holy Mother the Church, who, St. Ambrose says, “calleth back many of her children to life from the very funeral procession of spiritual death, or even from the pomps which be the burial rites of sin.”
All we members of the Church are sinners. And for this, we are all sentenced to die before we can enjoy the fruits of eternal life. But how many of us poor sinners are on the road to perdition? How many sinners have no intention of renouncing their attachments to the pleasures of life, and willfully continue their sinful ways without a thought of repentance or conversion? So many people are driving recklessly down this road with no hope—no natural hope, that is—of putting on the brakes. They are like the young man being carried in his coffin, already dead to the spiritual life and wallowing in mortal sins that have killed their soul. Like him they give no thought to returning to life, in their case the life of grace. To all appearances, they are doomed.
And yet, there is hope. The mother who bewails their death is none other than the Mother of Mercy herself, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today we celebrate her under the title of Our Lady of Ransom, or more commonly Our Lady of Mercy. This title is not without consequence. She is the Mother of us all, and, like any mother, cares deeply for her children. All her children. And when we fall into sin she weeps for us her children. If we pray a simple Hail Mary, invoking her intercession that she in turn pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, we have every right to suppose that she in turn does just that. Surely, anyone who has ever invoked her holy name, who has ever fled to her protection, will not be abandoned by her as they approach that fearful moment of their death. No matter how sinful a life they have led, she will be there to plead their cause before the judgment seat of God. And if there is any hope at all for their wretched souls, it must surely be in the intercession of this great Lady of Mercy. As she weeps for the death of her children, he will surely have the same compassion as he showed to the Widow of Nain, and will say to her too, “Weep not,” turning to us poor, lifeless sinners, and say unto us, “Arise.”
But let’s not leave it to the last minute. Our Lord has instituted the Sacrament of Confession so that our mortally wounded souls may be recalled to life. He has given his apostles, and through them the priests of his Church, the power to forgive sins. We have this tremendous tool of salvation within our grasp on a weekly basis, the God-given opportunity to rid ourselves of mortal sin and rise again to the life of grace. Let us pray to Our Lady of Ransom and then avail ourselves of this chance to attain, now, the “life after death” that absolution gives us. The people who saw our Lord raise the widow’s son and we who see the dead brought back to life in the confessional, we are all witnesses to these miracles of grace. Let us all acknowledge in our hearts that indeed, “God hath visited his people.”