God's love is eternal - Funeral of Francis!

Death of a Christian is always a bitter-sweet experience. For people who have no faith, death is a random, chaotic and a senseless word with no purpose or meaning. For them personal tragedy leads only to despair. For them life on this earth is nothing more than a sadistic riddle. For us Christians – the people of Faith, death is a realization of God’s eternal and everlasting love. Socrates once said, “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”

Let us look into all our human relationships: the known acquaintances, ordinary friendships, close friendships, legendary love stories, history-book love stories and great marriages all validate the same slogan: Death do us apart. Mark 12 we read about Pharisees asking Jesus the question about after-life. If a man dies and the woman marries 7 people, when happens at the resurrection. Jesus says, when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Human relationships are limited to this life; they are lacking in the ‘eternal’ element in them.

Ps 103:17 we read, from eternity to eternity the Lord’s love is with those who fear him. Bodily death is not the primary concern for God’s eternal love but certainly the spiritual death, the death of our faith. As a war veteran Francis would have known how power worked! As a rifleman he knew his targets and also he was a man of commitments: 42 years of service in Jersey Power and light company. These commitments and whole-hearted services are the shadows of our eternity with God. We need these images of committed love, vows and promises to try and experience the eternal love of God.

Eternal love of God is the sure symbol of our eternal life with God: if God loves us eternally, we should be alive to reciprocate that love. With sure and certain hope Francis is welcomed into the eternity of God. That leaves us with a big challenge of in continuously attempting to experience eternity in our own ways. Experiencing eternity needs a tremendous faith and a committed heart to love God and others. As we continue to pray for the repose of the soul of Francis, let us also remember and pray for our own attempts to experience the eternity and those attempts are guided and blessed by the Spirit of God. Amen.