The thinning of the veil

As I write this, my grandfather is dying. They have "sent him home to die"--said he had six to twelve months left, depending on how his diet and medications are balanced. If even ONE little thing gets out of whack, he's dead. They argue over whether he can have another piece of bread, and my mom says he's hungry all the time. He sneaks candy when no one's looking. My black-sheep uncle is staying with them and overseeing everything, but he hasn't got the greatest bedside manner, says my mom.

When I asked if he had received the Anointing of the Sick, my mom and grandma seemed nonplussed. "He'll never accept that," said my Mom. "He thinks it's Last Rites, and he can't face his own mortality. He never even made a will." My grandma said, "He's had a good run, and it's in God's hands now." Meanwhile, I am struggling with my own frustration...yeah, but we can help him to accept his birth into eternity with grace--I tried to say in the gentlest way possible.

In 1999, I was in Hong Kong with the boat for a quick liberty stop. But it happened to be the Chinese New Year--and you could read microfilm by the skyscrapers set ablaze with electricity. In contrast, our Christian New Year begins with a hush and an old song with a somber lilt. O Come, Emmanuel! The Office readings all have as their refrain, Come, Lord Jesus! Come save us from our sins, from the darkness. Be our light. What happens in the beginning of a wedding, when the bride reaches the altar? He raises her veil, so that all can look upon her beauty. Your light will come, Jerusalem. The Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty.

Seems like people shut into themselves in winter, when trees drop their leaves and people finally start to put on some clothes. But what we should be doing is baring our souls. Our liturgical readings blend Christ's Second Coming with his first, to remind us of death, last things, judgment. Recently, two people I know have died. When I pray at night, I try to wrap my mind around the sum and span of their lives--the mere 40 or 50 years these two have known on this earth (taken by surprise), with no hint of an ending--compared with eternity. For eternity they are either for or against Jesus, spending the deathless ages in unspeakable joy or remorseless misery. Makes you think.

One of the things it makes me think is that our real work is not in this life. Think of the great saints who have died declaiming completely the worth of all their heroic works. "Now we begin," St. Francis is reported to have said at death. "For from before until now we have done nothing." St. Thomas Aquinas claimed all his great theological works were merely "straw." St. Therese of Liseiux wrote that, while she would have preferred to have become a missioner, even to suffer martyrdom--she was, rather, only a little plaything of the Child Jesus. Jesus told St. Faustina Kowalska that she was to be the Secretary of His Divine Mercy for her life on Earth. Any guesses as to what she's doing up in Heaven?

Flip on a television and watch the commericals for five minutes, and you'll get a completely opposite view. "Your future is now!" the ads scream. "Life is only worth all the pleasure and enjoyment you can get out of it...pursue health, wealth, beauty, and fame, and you've got it made. Live for the moment, because that's all there is, folks!" But what a bare, poor life that is compared with even the flashes of joy we experience in this life, the fullness of which can only be achieved in Heaven. And yet the thick, suffocating veil of materiality seems impenetrable. How can we deepen our sense of the endless? How can we apprehend immortality?

1. Advent is a great time to start praying. If you don't already have some kind of daily devotion, start one now. Since last year I have been praying Morning and Evening Prayer, with the super-abbreviated breviary, and it's mostly worked out. I love being steeped in the liturgical year instead of the secular year. It's a great way to meditate and memorize Scripture. Plus, it's cool to sign your correspondence with "The Feast of the..." just like bishops and cardinals do.

2. Start singing. Remember any hymns from church? Christmas carols? I'm having to re-learn them because they've been weeded out of radio and TV and the grocery store. I copy down hymns after Mass while my husband is dragging the toddler to the van, then sing from my scraps of paper when I'm alone with the kids.

3. Turn off the voices. It's hard to cultivate an inner dialogue with the Lord when you've got the TV blaring in the background. I limit TV time to Sesame Street and Bob, but after that it's off. Sometimes I listen to Catholic radio. But not always.

4. Take a mind trip. The imagination is a transcendent thing. It's no accident that every human being walking around this planet has an entire galaxy between their ears. Try imagining that when you're driving down the street. Whoa...if they only knew. When you lay down at night and your back/knees/feet/head is hurting, say to yourself, I've got a brand new one in Heaven. If you've had a bad day...I'm one day closer to being home with you, Jesus. Then try and imagine Jesus holding you, comforting you, welcoming you. Try to imagine what would happen if you died tonight. What if you woke up to...Him?? How would you live your day differently?

Don't accept the morbidity that surrounds death in our culture. Surrender to your own mortality. Accept the blinding fact that Jesus waits just beyond the curtain, and what he holds in trust for you is beyond your imagination. And you can't wait to get there! But if you just try to imagine it, using what faculties he gave you--he might grant to you a glimpse through the veil. I hope He gives something like that to my grandpa.

Please pray for him, his name is Harry.