New meaning to the way we live our lives

Woody Allen said, “There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?” Death is a subject that is evaded, ignored, and denied by our youth-worshipping, progress-oriented society. Death is seen as a threat to humanity, an enemy to be conquered or a prison to be escaped; it is not perceived as an integral part of our lives that gives meaning to human existence. ‘Every man dies – not every man really lives’ says William Wallace. We often ask what the meaning of our life is. It is the other way around: we are questioned by life.

Our God is the God of life. He reveals His Sacred Name to Moses as the God who is. Whenenver God the Father conversed with the people, He referred Himself as the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. This God is the God of the living. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses and other people who come under the line of the Divine, live and dont see death.

We know that life is pleasant; death is peaceful, but the transition is only troublesome. Our life leads us through Death. Christians are people of the Resurrection. Our faith is built on the resurrection of Jesus. We profess that we believe in the resurrection of the dead. Adam was not created by God as mortal (Council of Carthage 418). Man is made for something better than death. Man made death as part of his life through the miasma of evil. Jesus came to liberate man not fighting death, rather accepting death and transcending it through his resurrection.

As we commemorate our dead today, we ought to remember three things for our reflection:

1. The dead has left behind a lesson on our approach of the divine. They have shown what to do and what not to do in responding to God’s love. As we thank God for their lives we pray that our lives carry a certain worth. They have shown us how we must prepare ourselves for our life and death.
2. Jesus accepted and went through death personally to be glorified. Death is not the end of human life, rather a start of the eternal life. Our life on earth is a preparation to that life.
3. Human life has to be respected. Every Christian has the responsibility to raise voice against efforts put in killings, persecutions, war and other mode of irresponsibility which curtail people’s freedom to prepare themselves for our after-life.

Let us pray that we be not afraid of death, but give new meaning to the way we live this life thus God would guide us all through. Amen.