"The great and sad mistake of many people -among them, even pious persons - is to imagine that those whom death has taken, leave us. They do not leave us. They remain! Where are they? In darkness? Oh, no! It is we who are in darkness. We do not see them, but they see us. Their eyes, radiant with glory, are fixed upon our eyes full of tears. Oh, infinite consolation! Though invisible to us, our dead is not absent.
I have often reflected upon the surest comfort for those who mourn. It is this: A FIRM FAITH IN THE REAL AND CONTINUAL PRESENCE OF OUR LOVED ONES; it is the clear and penetrating conviction that DEATH HAS NOT DESTROYED THEM, NOR CARRIED THEM AWAY. They are not even absent, but LIVING near us, TRANSFIGURED: having lost, in their glorious change, no delicacy of their souls, no tenderness of their hearts, nor especial preference in their affection. On the contrary, they have, in depth and in fervor of devotion, GROWN LARGER A HUNDREDFOLD.
DEATH IS, for the good, A TRANSLATION INTO LIGHT, INTO POWER, INTO LOVE. Those who on earth were only ordinary Christians become PERFECT…those who were good become SUBLIME."
-Karl Rahner, SJ
THOSE WE HOLD CLOSE TO OUR HEARTS NEVER LEAVE US,
THEY LIVE ON IN THE KINDNESSES THEY SHARED
AND IN THE LOVE THEY BROUGHT INTO OUR LIVES.
- ANONYMOUS-
