The Dead

Where are the dead? We have only one answer. They are in Christ. They live in Christ. Though they 'died,' they live, because Christ lives. Our relationship with the saints and the dead are not as an obligation that the non-doing of a veneration or prayers may cause punishment or trouble for us. Instead, our relationship with the saints and the dead is of charity, personal and divine. The remembering of the dead makes sense only within the communion in Christ as one body. All are part of that body. Remember their lives, the life they endured. We remember whom we know in gratitude and love. We forgive them and ask forgiveness from them. Those who are unknown are remembered in generosity and charity. All being in communion is the joy of the entire body. ||

It is not just about the dead alone, this time is a practice to extend our mercy and kindness to the weak, the vulnerable and the condemned. Just as it helps their sanctification or purgation, it also sanctifies us. A heart to receive the sinful and the vulnerable is essential for our own being in communion with Christ. A saintly ‘we’ group and a rejected ‘they’ group never open heaven for us, rather we close it against ourselves however holy and upright we claim to be. The reality of purgation is in active love and mercy. Often our attempts are only to prove the romanticised reality of a fascination towards purgatory. Very many learned hatred are sanctified under faithful living of Christian faith. They must burn in the flames of love that makes us accept the condemned, the sinful and whom we hate. Often this hatred is justified as fight against the evil, but it only sacralise our heartlessness against our brothers and sisters. Thus we close heaven for ourselves and for them even now. An honest living deepens our communion in the one body of Christ. Except for the moments if there are deliberate evil deeds or holding of hatred, in our simple lives we live a life of holiness. Peace, holiness, sanctity, all these can never be achieved holding it as a high ideal, they are a call and a responsibility we need to commit as individuals and as the church. It is everyone’s role to strengthen, comfort, and console one another. This communion reminds us to live in Christ, in communion with him and with others. Died to sin, died in Christ all have a new self, that is being part of the body of Christ. 

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