Every November we welcome hundreds of people from the local community and further afield, to join us in Oscott cemetery for the Blessing of Graves. We gather for a Liturgy of the Word before dispersing to the graves of loved ones where priests and seminarians offer prayers with family or friends, blessing the grave with holy water. This gathering is a testimony to the bonds of love that those gathered have forged with those who have been laid to rest. It is also a witness to faith and trust in God and his merciful love for all of us, the living and the dead. It is a beautiful witness of hope that we have in the life eternal which has been won for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the master key who unlocks the meaning of life and death for us, without Jesus it is difficult to make complete sense of our existence, with all its joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties. In Jesus, God becomes one of us, he unites himself with our frail and wounded human condition, in all things but sin. In Jesus, God loves us in a way that we can understand. On Calvary, Jesus embraces the cross bearing the vast panorama of human trauma and sin. With a love that is stronger than death, the one who is love swallows up all sin and death and rises to a new and eternal life. ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’ (John 11:25-26).
Because of Jesus’ victory on the cross, death no longer has the last word but becomes the doorway to life eternal. This is why our baptism is the most important day of our life because this eternal life of Jesus becomes our life so that St Paul can say, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ (Galatians 2:20) The risen Jesus never grows old, he is ever youthful, always fresh, always relevant in every age. When we celebrate a saint’s feast day, it is usually kept on (or near to) the date that they died. Our death is in fact the crowning moment of our pilgrimage through this life – our entry to the fullness of life.
Of course, the moment of death separates us for a time from those whom we have known and loved in this life. We want to be close to them. Our visits to the cemetery are often an expression of this desire to be physically close to our loved ones. As we look forward with hope to the day of resurrection it is a good that we visit and pray at the graves of our loved ones. But for us who are baptised we know there is a place where we can be even closer to those who have gone before us. When we celebrate the Mass at any Catholic Church, Earth and heaven are united in Jesus. The holy souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven, and we who are pilgrims here on earth, are drawn into communion through our Lord Jesus.
Today let us pray for one another and for our loved ones now departed. Let us encourage one another in the renewal of our Christian faith so that with Mary we can respond to Jesus, the resurrection and the life, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, the one who has to come into this world.’ (John 11:27)
