As I am ending this series of columns on offering our deaths as a gift to others, I keep thinking of the word “chiaroscuro.” The word means a mixture of light and darkness. My experience is that when I reflect on a mystery, either a philosophical mystery or a religious mystery, my insight seems like a light penetrating the mystery that leads to some understanding of the mystery.
However, that understanding and insight are often accompanied by a darkness that prevents me from fully comprehending the mystery. I find that the deeper the mystery is, the greater the mixture of light and darkness. I am not certain if other people have this experience. To students in my philosophy classes at St. John’s University, I suggest that they reflect on their own experience of mysteries to see whether they experience a chiaroscuro. I confess that I have had the experience of chiaroscuro often while reading and rereading Ronald Rolheiser’s beautiful but challenging book “Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years.”
In all my philosophy classes and in just about everything I have written, I stress that the essence of the human person is to be relational. We can decide how we will relate; we cannot decide whether we will relate. Because I think that the nature of a human person is to be relational, it is surprising that until I read Rolheiser, I never thought that our deaths, how we die, should be a gift to others.
Rolheiser writes the following:
“Our presence to one another physically in touch, sight, speech, is no doubt the deepest wonder in all of life, and sometimes the only thing we can appreciate as real. But wonderful as that is, it is always limited and fragile. It is limited because it depends upon being physically connected in some way, and it is fragile because separation (physical or emotional) can easily take someone away from us. With everyone we love (parents, spouses, children, friends, colleagues), we are always just one trip, one accident, or one heart attack from losing their physical presence. … We can easily lose one another. But there is a presence that cannot be taken away, that does not suffer from this fragility: the spirit that, because of the inner dictates of love and life, comes from our loved ones. A spirit returns, and it is deep and permanent and leaves a warm, joyous, and real presence that nobody can ever take from us” (p. 66).
I have struggled with the last few sentences of Rolheiser’s, struggling to understand them and to decide whether I agree with them. I think I understand them, and I do agree with them, but there is another section in Rolheiser’s book which I believe is a stronger affirmation of how the death of our loved ones can participate in a victory over the limitation and fragility of human relationships. It is the Catholic teaching about the communion of saints. That doctrine means more to me after reading Rolheiser’s book. Rolheiser writes the following;
“Our belief in the communion of saints gives us a second chance, and that is a much-needed consolation. No matter who we are, we’re always inadequate in our relationships. We can’t always be present to our loved ones as we should; we sometimes say things in anger and bitterness that leave deep scars; we betray trust in all kinds of ways, and mostly we lack the maturity and self-confidence to express the affirmation we should to our loved ones. None of us ever fully measures up. When Karl Rahner says that for everyone, ‘all symphonies remain unfinished’ in this life, he isn’t just meaning that none of us ever fully realizes our dream; he’s also referring to the fact that in our most important relationships, none of us ever fully measures up. … There are always things that should have been said and weren’t, and there are always things that shouldn’t have been said and were.
“But that is where our faith comes in” (pp. 144-145).
I have come to believe that anyone who dies in union with Christ is present wherever Christ is present. My mother, father, and sister are deceased, but every time I celebrate a Eucharist, I believe they are present. I don’t mean in my memory. I believe they are personally present.
Of course, we cannot picture or imagine this, but I think it is true. I also believe that we can communicate with one another. It is one of the results of Christ’s conquering of death. A bonus of the book is Rolheiser’s sketch of St. John of the Cross.
I must admit I knew little about St. John. Apparently, he was a genius in philosophy, theology, and especially in spirituality.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.