ARE YOU THE ONE?.

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This past week started with a death. When I arrived at the Benedictine sisters' priory of St. Walburga in Elizabeth to say morning mass, I was greeted with the news that their beloved Sister Damien had died just a couple of hours before at the age of 101. There was a thoughtful sobriety about the convent that morning.

Then, Thursday was the first anniversary of the death of my brother, Richard. So, I was preparing myself for a day of quiet remembering of this wonderful "big brother" who had been such a great influence in my early life. But my reflecting on his anniversary was cut short when it was announced to the school community that 58-year-old Bill Petrick, our Freshman English teacher, had died suddenly on the way to school that morning. 

It was just a couple of weeks ago that a 28-year-old History teacher had succumbed to cancer. Grief was piling up on our community. We tried to take care of the kids as best we could by inviting them to visit the counselling center, and by inviting them to talk frankly about the experience in many of our classes.

In class on Friday morning, I told my sophomores how rotten I was feeling over these deaths. When I asked them if they thought it was okay for a priest-monk to feel so sad about friends or loved ones dying, at least one student answered immediately that no, priests aren't supposed to feel sad when people die. I straightened him out fast, believe me, explaining that grieving is a very human and healthy thing, as Jesus and lots of saints have always insisted.

SO WHAT?

Of course, the mystery of death is way deeper than our human intellect's ability to fathom; but we still want to look for some shape, some sense in the face of any tragedy. As I was talking to my sophomores about our various experiences of grieving and our attitudes toward death, I thought of an incident that had given me a little perspective on my grief a year ago, so I shared it with them. I think it's worth sharing with you here.

I'm sitting in the funeral parlor at my brother's wake, when along comes my four-year-old grand-niece Gracie. She stops in front of me and stares inquisitively for a moment or two. She knows that she's seen me a few times before at family gatherings. Unfortunately, though, she hasn't had the chance to get to know me, and even less of a chance to know her other great-uncle, my deceased brother. 

As she stands and stares inquisitively at me, I can tell she's preparing to ask one of those questions that four-year-olds are so good at. Finally she asks me,

"Are you the one who died?"

ARE YOU THE ONE?

Luckily, I know the answer to this one right away: "No, Gracie. The one who died is uncle Dick. I'm uncle Albert." I keep a straight face the whole time, I'm proud to say.

Over time, though, her question has kept coming back to me as an Easter question: Am I not supposed to die every day with Christ so as to rise again with him in his victory over death and sin?

Each night in my examination of conscience I ought to be asking myself, When did I die today? Did I take every opportunity offered me to die to myself so as to live with Christ? For example, did some student in need ask me to die a little to myself by going out of my way to help him? Did I overcome a temptation, say, to cut short my prayer time and instead die to my own desires in order to "waste" some more time with the Lord?

Gracie's question is a haunting help to me every day: "Are you the one who died?"

With the Lord's help, I hope that I can answer her, "Well, Gracie, I'm working on it."