The Blessed Virgin had to ask someone else to bury her dead.
Recently, my mother in law passed away (May God Rest her soul). Her passing was not unexpected. She had experienced an illness over the last fifteen months or so and during that time she had become increasingly frail to the point where we – as her family – knew that her time to meet her Creator would soon come.
When a family have time to prepare for the death of a loved one there is a certain amount of blessing there. After all, when a person can prepare to meet their Beloved, they can in fact actually prepare… When I compare this action of preparation with myself in my own life, the difference is remarkable.
You see, for a person experiencing a terminal illness, the business of living is to die. And – in fact – the business of anybody’s living should be to die. I was born to die to be born to eternal life. The only Soul who has ever been born to die (and not born to die to be born to eternal life) is Christ Himself. You see, Christ was already in Heaven as God the Son. He had no REASON to be born on this earth and to suffer and die for our sins. He would already have been in Heaven whether He was born on this earth and into this flesh or not. And in coming to a greater understanding of such a thing it is even more evident that the sacrifice that Christ made – to enter into time and space for love of me – is so magnificent that it does not bear contemplation. God the Son left the perfection of Heaven for a period of time to experience the earth in Human flesh. And He did this – not to merit Heaven – He is after all God and has no need of good deeds to merit His own place. Rather He did this for my sake (to save me, and to save you too).
The one difficulty in my mother in law’s death was the distance of her from us. Twice, my husband travelled to spend time with her to care for her and make arrangements as required for her care. And twice he had to return home to us – leaving her behind. The last time he went to her, he was sure that he would bury her before he returned home. Instead, she died twelve hours after he arrived home and he was required to ask his cousins to bury her for him. And there is such a great sorrow in asking another soul to bury your dead… That is a sorrow that transcends human contemplation. And even in that did God Himself experience.
For when Christ died, it was a relative stranger – Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Christ – who buried Him. The Blessed Virgin had to ask someone else to bury her dead. And when I think about the injustice of that for a woman without sin and her Divine Child, I am moved to tears… I am simply moved to tears…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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