Jaime E. Masagca
#advocatusdiaboli
#chasinglightschasingdreams
It was not long ago that I attended a good neighbor’s funeral. As mourners and friends one by one left the cemetery I decided to stay and visit the graves of my own friends and relatives. I also tarried to note the many whose deaths have not been announced in obituaries, as if they have come and left in silence after making their marks in this world.
Later I sat at a bench up a hill overlooking the graveyard to enjoy the cold afternoon breeze and for even a moment spend time with those who have once been with us, recalling how they have lived, touched our lives and perhaps understand the reason why they have lived in this generation.
It was so comforting to reflect and appreciate that life for contemporaries would be different without them. Truly each one of us has a purpose for others that God chose us to be here at a precise period, that we should not choose to ignore and waste the opportunity given to serve others to the fullest, and perhaps to make a difference.
I left the dead in their silence just before darkness has completely devoured the light, but like the cold wind at dusk, a question lingers on my mind, how well will I be remembered when I too had said goodbye?
Had I done enough? Or had I done enough to create misery, cheated, and oppressed as one had recently done even on his own kins whom he looked down on as “the needy”? It’s a pity that he preferred money over family, relations, wealth over respect, and pseudo fame over morals by virtually stripping the clan of its filial identity.
Alas, like him many have not made use of the little time we are privileged to enjoy, but instead wasted it in life up a pedestal, looking down on others, unforgiving of trivial mistakes that others may commit. While others act as if they owned God, or act as if they themselves are gods because of political patronage.
It is not rare to meet people of this kind even at supermarket checkout counters.
Mark Anthony (William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2) in his discourse on the murder of Julius Caesar said that “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.” And so let it also be with the proud and arrogant.
More importantly, then is how well or how meaningful one has lived his life, and the worth of a man is measured in his interment. Life is as important as mortality and logically one cannot be divorced from the other. We have the sole option for the world to remember us for our wickedness.
To be human or be society’s nuisance is not a pre-destination. There is no such thing as pre-destination as many claims, citing the role of Judas Iscariot in Christ’s passion. Has it not that God has given us intellect and free will to course our own life?
Death is a certainty and is in accordance with God’s plan. But even in death, God respects man’s free will when to “cross the light”. Man does not have the mandatory forty days to roam the earth after death as commonly believed. Many souls of the departed stay long enough because of unfinished business, or just long enough to see that those left behind are doing fine.
It is hard to believe unless one may have experienced encounters with those who are gone. The repentant thief may have been in paradise immediately upon his death as Jesus has promised, but others have lingered on.
Jesus may have known that Judas will betray Him but it was not pre-destination. Only Jesus as God and man knew what is in every man’s heart.
God knew each of us; what our strengths and weaknesses; abilities and limitations would be. He knew us in this way even before we were born. "Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5).
So is Judas in hell? Yes, the Pharisees were just waiting for the right time to arrest Jesus, which even prior they already attempted to kill Him only that Jesus has slipped away. There was no need for Judas to betray Jesus.
Taking one’s life is a manifestation of remorse, which would be absent if one has not acted of his own free will.
Thus Jesus prays for His apostles, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition so that the Scripture would be fulfilled (John 17)”.
Like life, death and the afterlife have always been a mystery to many, and as an inevitable reality, death is certain all of us have to face at a stretch we know not when, while many see death as something that can be avoided or postponed.
The thought of one’s death is chilling, with the prospects of pain and struggles, and even of leaving a comfortable life or a family.
What bothers some, myself included, is the uncertainty of where to after? Death may be an adventure that no mortal has yet experienced but what lies ahead when we believe in hell and purgatory as much as we believe in heaven?
Will we get to join the “banquet” or be thrown out in the dark where “there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth”?
Even great minds and men of great talents have contemplated on death.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Composer and Musician, 27 January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791)once wrote in his letter to Leopold Mozart, “As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity...of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in the company I am morose or disgruntled.”
In the same perspective, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer, March 6, 1475 - February 18, 1564) once wrote “If life pleases us, death, being made by the hands of the same Creator, should not displease us”, which perspective may perhaps have inspired him to portray in “Pieta” a youthful and serene countenance of the Blessed Virgin Mary contemplating on the lifeless body of her Son.
In sharp contrast to Mozart and Michelangelo’s resignation to man’s destiny, Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet, 1914–1953) wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Unless we truly understand death, we can never expect to understand life, and unless we accept death we can never appreciate life. It is unfortunate perhaps that many have considered death as a backdoor to escaping life’s realities or an exit from the harshness of inhumanities or to keep a code of honor as in some cultures.
One of my favorite songs, which I also love to play on the keyboard on idle nights is Don McLean's 1970s hit song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night), probably an allusion to the actual life of Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch painter, 1853 – 1890).
The song’s lyrics which I have quoted here seem to describe the artist’s struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.
MacLean attempts to show the incongruency of Vincent’s time with his genius, his passion, with his personal preferences. “But I could have told you, Vincent, This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”
“Now I understand what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now.
For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.
- Vincent, by Don McLean, 1970
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