Of dying on special days and other matters
There are countless hidden things in the interweaving of the natural and the supernatural, during our lives, including the special times some people die. Call it synchronicity. When a person dies on Easter -- a person who lived a life of intense Catholic devotions -- does it mean anything?
It must. Of course. At the least, it is what Pope Benedict XVI said: a grace, "a gift."
We had an uncle who not only died on Easter, 2002, but that year Easter was March 31 -- his son's birthday.
It was also the birthday of a special uncle of his who served as his "right-hand man" in a large construction firm he owned.
There has to be meaning in cases like that!
If nothing, it's a punctuation mark.
It tells us life has meaning at every turn, and sometimes there are cloaked messages (if only we could decode them). Call synchronicity "meaningful coincidence." (Is there really any such thing as coincidence?) Surely you have your own examples!
There are also some interesting contemplations to be made on passages in the Bible.
For example, we just meditated, during Holy Week, about how Christ, on the way to Calvary, said to those mourning women who were following Him, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but for yourselves and your children; for if men use the green wood like this, what will happen when it is dry?" (Luke 23:28-31).
One has a sense of what He meant by that, but not a full sense.
Until, perhaps, one meditates deeper.
Might it even have been a prophecy?
Centuries later, "daughters of Jerusalem" -- Jewish women -- would find themselves destroyed like tinder -- dried wood -- in gas chambers during the great Nazi Holocaust (holocaust means "burnt offering").
It could also be taken (this idea of no mercy for old wood) as a warning on how we would treat our elderly (the push for euthanasia).
Things to ponder.
There are plenty of others, in books like Psalms.
This -- from Psalms -- may remind us of the rampant materialism (and also certain politics) of our time:
"Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me, men who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?...
"Yea, you shall see that even the wise die, the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others.
"Their graves are their homes for ever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they named lands their own.
"Man cannot abide in his pomp; he is like the beasts that perish."
Written somewhere between 537 and 100 B.C., Psalms also foresaw the Crucifixion ("Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet" (Psalm 22:16). "They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment" (Psalm 22:18).
(Although we usually use the New American version, it is interesting to read Psalms all the way through in the highly engaging and ingeniously abbreviated Reader's Digest version, which can be done in a single long penitential sitting.)
As that version also notes -- getting back to politics:
"The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought; He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
"The counsel of the Lord stands for ever...
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord..."
Blessed indeed -- until it stops worshipping Him.
[resources: Retreat, Michael Brown in Illinois, April 23 and Retreat: Cherry Hill, New Jersey]
[Note: Spirit Daily pilgrimage announced for Guadalupe]
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