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In addition to Easter, this is a time of year where our church is preparing to celebrate many sacraments. Our second graders have recently received their First Reconciliation, we have candidates and catechumens preparing to come into the church at the Easter Vigil, and in a few short weeks we’ll be celebrating our First Communion and Confirmation classes.

This time of year always gets me thinking about the sacraments and what beautiful gifts they are to us in this earthly life. These “outward signs, instituted by Christ to give grace” (Baltimore Catechism) are the life of the church. I’m grateful that I was raised with keen awareness of how special these days are and how our family has always rallied to celebrate them together when we can. With 37 grandkids, there are a lot of sacraments to celebrate! How can you help but be joyful when you have that much grace pouring into your family!

My son received his First Holy Communion last spring just a few months after my mom’s passing. It was the first sacrament for our immediate family that she wasn’t here to celebrate. It was so strange because only a year before, she had been here celebrating my daughter’s special day, and she was so healthy. So much can change in a year.

Moments before mass one of the teachers came to tell me that my son was upset. This really wasn’t like him. He was so excited for the day and he wasn’t one to get nervous, so I rushed over to the hall to talk to him. He was ok, he just missed his Granny. And as heartbreaking as that realization was, and how much my heart sank when he said out loud what had been consuming my thoughts for weeks leading up to this day – what was beautiful was that the sacrament he was about to receive was the very thing that could unite him with her again.

I was able to talk to him about how the body and blood he was about to receive was the very same body and blood that strengthened Granny for her movement into eternal life. This, “viaticum,” or “provision for the journey,” contained a promise for her and that very same promise was being extended to him. For scripture tells us,

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” John 6: 54-55

I was able to share with him the most beautiful secret, one that we so easily overlook. That during the Mass, all of heaven and earth joins in a great feast. That in the moments of consecration, the veil is lifted, and that Granny would be right there with him, at the Feast of the Lamb. I was able to tell him how close I feel to Granny in those moments, that on some days I can almost feel her hand on my shoulder and sense her standing next to me. I was able to tell him how during Holy Communion we are reunited with those we love in the presence of the Most High, in the highest form of worship.

I don’t know that I fully understood this truth until recently. I suppose I had learned it, but I don’t think I grasped what it meant until I stood face to face with grief and the profound loss of a loved one.

One of the privileges of my job as Director of Music Ministry is that I am usually the vocalist for the funerals at our parish. It sounds as though it might be a depressing job, going to funerals so often, but I have found quite the opposite. It is an honor and a privilege to sing for funeral liturgies and I am grateful to be able to serve the families of our parish in this way.

The benefits are three-fold.

For one, I have been afforded the opportunity to contemplate death on a regular basis. I hear over a dozen eulogies throughout a typical year. There is something beautiful about hearing loved ones remember the person they are mourning, particularly as an outsider. I often tear up at eulogies being shared for people I didn’t even know. It allows me to try to orient my life towards the things that will be remembered, to think about what I hope might be said when Jesus calls me home.

Secondly, I have had the privilege of hearing the scriptures typically read at the funeral liturgy often. Readings like Psalm 23, The Beatitudes, and my favorite, John 14:3

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am going you also may be.”

These scriptures remind me that life is changed, not ended.

Finally, I am able to hear good preaching on the subject of death. Our pastor is a wonderful preacher, but he is particularly gifted in his funeral homilies. He has helped me understand the theology of death and purpose of the funeral liturgy in a new and beautiful way. So often, we think of the funeral liturgy as a celebration of the person who has passed, an opportunity to say our goodbyes and remember all of their wonderful qualities. And though that’s not a bad thing to do, that is not why we are there. We are there to PRAY the deceased HOME. To unite our prayers with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to assist in the purification of the soul that Jesus has called into eternal life. And as we do that, we proceed with sure and certain hope that we will be connected to that person again, at the table of the Lord and someday in the eternal kingdom. That is a very powerful and beautiful truth and one I am so grateful to now understand.

There are gifts like this all throughout the sacramental life, consolations of all kinds to strengthen us on our journey – if only we can learn to recognize them.

As we prepare to enter the final week of lent and the week of Christ’s passion, may we reflect on the beautiful gift of the sacraments and the promises of life with Him.