By Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge
DEATH has been much on my mind in recent times.
First, because an old friend and mentor of mine Redemptorist Father Tony Kelly died after a long and slow journey to death; and then Archbishop Frank Carroll, my predecessor as Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn, died after 56 years as a bishop.
Both men in their different ways made extraordinary contributions to the Church in Australia and also to society more broadly.
Frank was a pastor and Tony a theologian, but both were remarkable human beings.
Then there was James O’Brien, a 20 year old who helped out at the cathedral as sacristan and server and who was killed in a road accident on his way to work at the cathedral.
They say if you want a big funeral, die young; and the farewell to James at St Stephen’s was certainly big.
He was quiet by nature, but he seemed to like noisy things like motorbikes, trail-bikes and brass bands.
The band he played with even took part in the funeral.
There’s a special sadness to the sudden death of a young person.
Tony was 85 and Frank 93; they had lived long and rich lives. But James was cut short, and we lament that.
Coming back from Tony Kelly’s funeral in Melbourne, I thought to myself that I’m at an age when funerals are the order of the day.
Early in life, it was 21st birthdays; then came weddings (or ordinations); later there were the baptisms of the children; and so on.
But once you hit your 70s, it seems to be funerals.
I was thinking that I could well become a full-time mourner, spending most of my time racing around Australia attending funerals.
That’s presuming of course that I survive.
Others may be coming to my obsequies.
Then we are heading to Easter when death is very much in the air, though in a way that gives the key to understanding not only human death but also human life.
The death of Jesus was an appalling affair, crucifixion being the lowest and most atrocious form of execution known to the Roman world.
We tend to forget just how shocking it would have been in the Roman world to say that God-with-us had been crucified.
The cross has become a predictable religious symbol, even an emblem of respectability.
But it was far from that in the early centuries of Christianity.
It was truly scandalous to many.
As he went to his death, it may have seemed that Jesus was swept away by forces he couldn’t control; but that’s not how the Gospels have it.
Jesus freely decides to suffer this atrocious death, because he believes that this is the Father’s will for him.
He’s the one in control, not those who sentence him to death and nail him to a cross.
But why does the Father want Jesus to die?
Because he “so loved the world” (John 3:16) that he was prepared to give his only Son to be the sacrifice that would lure the murderous power of sin and death from its hiding-place so that it could be destroyed once and for all, as it is in the Resurrection.
The power of sin and death does its best on Calvary, and God goes one better in raising Jesus from the tomb.
The death that looked like a defeat was in fact a victory; it seemed like a disaster but it was the triumph of love; they thought it was the end but it was the beginning of new life. That death and the rising it provoked change the meaning of every death, including the death of Tony, Frank and James.
Death is no longer a dead end but a doorway: that’s what we say when we light the Paschal Candle as we do at every Catholic funeral.
Easter alone makes sense of Walter Scott’s words: “Death is not the last sleep but the final awakening”, and of Ernest Hemingway’s line: “No-one you love is ever truly lost”.
It also makes sense of the Irish saying: “You have gone no further from us than to God, and God is very near”.
