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Word To Life
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Sunday Scripture Readings: April 8, 2007
By Jeff Hensley
Catholic News Service
April 8, Easter Sunday: The Resurrection of the Lord
Cycle C Readings:
1) Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Psalm 118: 1-2, 16ab-17, 22-23
2) Colossians 3:1-4
3) Gospel: John 20:1-9
My dad died Feb. 25 at the age of 91. He was ready to go home. His wife, my mom, had taken leave of him five-and-a-half years before, and he had experienced the most profound loneliness ever since.
But he had only grown gentler and kinder in the intervening years. Not that he had reached perfection, mind you. But he had grown to be the best image of the love of God that who he was allowed him to be. And it was a pretty inspiring image at that.
A nurse who had attended him wept when my sister informed her that he had died. She told her that it was not a pleasure to attend to everyone in their last days, but that it had been a pleasure to attend to my dad.
Aging was good to my dad.
For the last six years of my mom's life, she was dealing with congestive heart failure and the beginnings of either senile dementia or Alzheimer's. In that time, my dad was unfailingly kind and gentle, growing into the role of caregiver in ways we, his children, would not have expected.
The good effects of his years in the Presbyterian Church teaching Sunday school, studying Scripture and serving in various ways seemed to show more and more in his final years. Questions of theological significance, particularly as they related to seeing my mom once again and his obligation to take care not to harm his physical body surfaced again and again in thoughtful, pondering ways.
In the end, the passing of this loving, gentle old man was a happy occurrence, with my sister holding one of his hands and I the other, each of us speaking words of love and encouraging him on into the next stage of his existence -- the place to which he was going not in doubt for either one of us. For as Paul put it in his Letter to the Colossians, "When Christ our life appears, then you shall appear with him in glory."
QUESTIONS:
What can you do now to help you grow in love of God and others so that when your time arrives to become part of the resurrected body of Christ, you will be ready?
SCRIPTURE TO BE ILLUSTRATED:
"Then the disciple who had arrived first at the tomb went in. He saw and believed" (John 20:8).
END
Copyright © 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS Word To Life column may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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