Legacy Matters
Tom Foley, a 41-year-old tax advisor tells how he copes with terminal cancer.
‘I am stepping out of time into eternity'
But, why accept? Why not a solitary whine? Or perhaps even a trite: "This is not fair." Because all is grace, all is gift. And it is time to give the gift back, freely and willingly. A strong sense of Divine Providence strengthens me, a sense that I have been prepared for this. Both my wife and I had fairly dramatic conversions around the time of the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI. Since then the liturgy, particularly the Benedictine monastic liturgies at abbeys such as St Cecilia's, Quarr, Downside, Solesmes and Le Barroux, have become, for us, a foretaste of the Heavenly Liturgy. What can one say but when the cantor announces: "Deus, in adiutorium meum intende ("O God, come to our aid") our souls will fly to the stratosphere and we will be among the angels. And then, after the chanting of the psalm, the bow for the "Glory be" is a bodily enactment of what the soul proclaims at that moment: "All is well, God is in the heavens and we are his sons and daughters!"
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Rather, one can be possessed by joy and, dare I say it, one can begin to taste a little excitement at the thought of stepping out of time into eternity. But the horror of the rupture and wrongness of death must not be denied and it is thus not right to be too joyful.
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There is an oddness about modern funerals I simply cannot fathom. Why are people so chirpy? I will leave clear instructions: no jokes and no beatification ceremony (the modern custom). Instead: I desire that people pray unceasingly that my purgation will be short.