As we approach the end of the year, and even more quickly approach the end of the liturgical year, which concludes next Sunday with the Feast of Christ the King, the Church’s attention turns towards the end of all things.  Towards the final conclusion that God will bring to creation, to our own lives, and to the unfolding of our salvation.  We get uncomfortable thinking about the last things.  It’s sort of impolite and politically incorrect to talk too much for example about the certainty of dying.  But we need to do it sometimes.  And it’s important that we think about those realities which have traditionally been known as the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. 

It’s important we do that because ours is a realistic religion, a realistic Faith.  Most spiritualties and religious systems have a big problem contending with the inevitability of suffering and death.  They either say, “It doesn’t matter,” “it’s not real,” “it’s just in your mind,” “you gotta transcend it,” “you can’t do anything about it, so you might as well just give up looking for meaning in your life and just have a good time,” and so forth.  We don’t do that.  We look suffering and death squarely in the face.  It’s why the crucifix is front and center in our church and in our lives.  We don’t pretend that life is always easy.  We don’t pretend that our Faith makes life easy.  We don’t pretend that suffering isn’t real.  We don’t pretend that death isn’t real, and isn’t really painful.  But we remember what St. Paul says; he says, “Don’t grieve like the pagans who have no hope.”  He doesn’t tell us not to grieve; he tells us not to grieve like the pagans.  When we are legitimately sad and sorrowful that a friend, a sibling, a parent, a spouse is no longer with us to share our lives, our sadness is real, and it’s ok, but it is a sadness infused with hope.  Sadness and hope.  These two things are completely compatible and complementary for a Christian.  We realistically mourn at the brokenness and suffering in our world and in our lives, but we know in Christian hope that everything will be made right in the end. 

In the beautiful words of the Church’s funeral liturgy, even as we are saddened by the certainty of dying, we are consoled by the promise of immortality to come.  We look to the cross, and we see that suffering and death can have meaning, and we remember that, these things are never the end.  There was also a resurrection.  We contemplate the message of today’s Word which speaks to us about God bringing creation to its final completion: and we realize that the pains we all experience in this life, as real as they are, will not have the last word.  That every cross leads to a resurrection.  In death, life is changed, not ended.  Both for the one who passes from this life, and for those who remain: our life is changed; it is not ended.  We have a God who takes our suffering and pain so seriously, that he found a way to experience it himself.  This is an incredible mystery: despite being all-powerful, perfectly good, infinitely great, he found a way to suffer, and even to die.  And he rose.  And he invites us to share in that rising.  We do that first of all in our baptism.  Washed in the waters of baptism, we enter into his death and rise with him in glory, washed clean in the blood of the lamb. 

Thinking about the end of our lives shouldn’t make us paralyzed with fear, but should inspire us to pursue our relationship with God so fervently that we will be peaceful and ready to join him when our time on this earth is done.  The four last things are real, and we know they’re real.  We know that one day we will pass from this life.  We know that God will judge us based on our charity and our faithfulness to him.  We know that, based on that judgment, one of two final destinies will await us.  But we know that God’s will is directed to our salvation.  He will try everything, give us everything, to help us accept our salvation.  We just have to say Yes.  We have to keep saying Yes throughout our lives.  Our first Yes, probably offered on our behalf, for most of us, was at the moment of our baptism.  We keep saying yes to God and to our salvation throughout our lives, every time we pray, every time we worship God at Holy Mass, every time we confess our sins with sincere sorrow, every time we do something good for another, we say Yes to God.  We say yes to our salvation.  We say Yes to our citizenship in heaven, promised to all those who are faithful to God.  May God, who has begun the good work in all of our lives, bring it to completion through Christ Jesus our Lord.