The feast of All
Saints' Day and the commemoration of All the
Faithful Departed have something in common, and for
this reason, have been placed one after the other.
Both celebrations speak to us of what's beyond. If
we didn't believe in a life after death, it would
not be worth it to celebrate the feast of the
saints, and even less, to visit the cemetery. Who
would we go to visit or why would we light a candle
or bring a flower?
Thus, everything in this day invites us to a wise
reflection: "Teach us to count our days," says a
Psalm, "that we may gain wisdom of heart." "We live
like tree leaves in autumn" (G. Ungaretti). The tree
in spring blooms again, but with other leaves; the
world will continue after us, but with other
inhabitants. Leaves don't have a second life; they
disintegrate where they fall. Does the same happen
to us? That's where the analogy ends. Jesus
promised: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He
who believes in, even if he dies, will live." This
is the great challenge of faith, not just for
Christians, but also for Jews and Muslims, for
everyone who believes in a personal God.
Those who have seen the movie "Doctor Zhivago" will
remember the famous song from Lara, the sound track.
The Italian version says: "I don't know what it is,
but there is a place from which we will never return
…" The song points to the meaning of the famous
novel by Pasternak on which the movie is based: Two
lovers find each other, seek each other, but they
are those whom destiny (we find ourselves in the
tumultuous epoch of the Bolshevik Revolution)
cruelly separates, until the final scene when their
paths cross again, but without recognizing one
another.
Every time I hear the notes of this song, my faith
brings me almost to shout out inside me: Yes, there
is a place from where we will never return and from
where we will not want to return. Jesus has gone to
prepare it for us, he has opened life for us with
his resurrection and he has indicated the path to
follow him with the passage of the beatitudes. A
place where time will stop to make way for eternity;
where love will be full and total. Not just the love
of God and for God but also all honest and holy love
lived on earth.
Faith doesn't free believers from the anguish of
having to die, but it soothes us with hope. A
preface of the Mass (for All Souls' Day) says: "If
the certainty of having to die saddens us, the hope
of future immortality consoles us." In this sense,
there is a moving testimony that also comes from
Russia. In 1972, in a clandestine magazine a prayer
was published that had been found in the jacket
pocket of a soldier, Aleksander Zacepa, composed
just before the World War II battle in which he
would die.
It says:
Hear me, oh God! In my lifetime, I have not spoken
with you even once, but today I have the desire to
celebrate. Since I was little, they have always told
me that you don't exist. And I, like an idiot,
believed it.
I have never contemplated your works, but tonight I
have seen from the crater of a grenade the sky full
of stars, and I have been fascinated by their
splendor. In that instant I have understood how
terrible is the deception. I don't know, oh God, if
you will give me your hand, but I say to you that
you understand me …
Is it not strange that in the middle of a frightful
hell, light has appeared to me, and I have
discovered you?
I have nothing more to tell you. I feel happy,
because I have known you. At midnight, we have to
attack, but I am not afraid. You see us.
They have given the signal. I have to go. How good
it was to be with you! I want to tell you, and you
know, that the battle will be difficult: Perhaps
this night, I will go to knock on your door. And if
up to now, I have not been your friend, when I go,
will you allow me to enter?
But, what's happening to me? I cry? My God, look at
what has happened to me. Only now, I have begun to
see with clarity. My God, I go. It will be difficult
to return. How strange, now, death does not make me
afraid.
