Next weekend, we will be celebrating All Saints’ Day and then the following Monday, All Souls’ Day. It is a particularly Catholic time, when we remember the “Faithful Departed” and hold those individuals deep in our hearts, minds and souls.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, grief today seems particularly difficult. Death and the fear of death seems more immediate, closer, if you will, this year. The seemingly random nature of this virus is frustrating and terrifying. Some who are infected barely notice it. Some get quite sick and it lingers. Some die. I recently read an article from the local paper in Wash Mo about a father/grandfather of some of my former students (you stick around a place for 30 years, you teach multiple generations). He was in that vulnerable age range (74), but he was healthy and fit. He led an active, working life. He and his wife both contracted Covid-19. She had a cold, he ended up on a ventilator and eventually passed away. It reminded me of the Scripture passage about the men working in the field and the women working at the mill, one is taken, one is left. That is how fickle this nasty thing is.
Beyond that, it has been difficult for people to truly grieve. Last Good Friday, I got called to a nursing home to celebrate the Last Rites with a man who was dying. Only one family member, a daughter, was allowed to be in the room. The rest of us were in gowns (surgical, not evening), gloves and masks. They had to FaceTime his anointing. It was poignant and sad. Others who have died have not had a proper funeral celebration. Ironically, the more people who know the deceased, the less likely it is to have a funeral, because of the crowds. I celebrated a Memorial Mass three weeks ago for a wom- an who died at the beginning of April. It is all so disjointed and strange.
As our society has opened a bit, it has gotten better. Last week, we celebrated the life of Francisca Leyton. It was a beautiful service, filled with both laughter and tears (97 years old, 71 years married to Candido). The family felt free to grieve. And as painful as that was, it was also refreshing.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let Perpetual Light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
AMEN.
Father Kevin