DEATH AND I -- AND YOU TOO -- AND US ALL

Hey, don't let the title scare you.  We all practice how to do it every single night.  In fact the great oxymoronical question on earth is, "Did you sleep well?"  Huh?  How should I know?  I was out like a light.  Like ya know, I was out like a rock, dude.  Tell ya what, let me check it out tonight and if I remember anything tomorrow I'll beep, beep, blippity-blip you a quick text. Fair 'nuff, dude?
It's rather sure that I am not going to talk to you about my "deceasing" because I haven't done it yet, not for the eternal type stuff, anyway.  Not about yours either because you too are still around, if you're reading this anyway.  So this is our chance to talk about other people.  Especially people who are in absolutely no position to talk back.  Neat-O!
I and you all have noticed that when we get together we talk a lot about who is what age now.  Cousin Maggie wrote the other day and said that because she turned 71 in April she must be second after me, the eldest at 74 as of last March.  I looked it up.  I had to because Elna, the matriarchal guardian of all this valuable information, is no longer around to advise me about the order of birth of everyone we know as relatives.  No, Maggie, at 71 you are behind Denis Dion who was born in '39.  But, don't let that get you.  You could have done worse.  I can tell you that as far as I know, there has not been a person in the Eugene "Big Red" Dion/Ora Bachand family who ever reached 74.  One, that I know of, didn't get to 30. Sadly, it was not her fault.  Even I, who remember the event, do not know the entire story.  If I ever learn it, I'll tell you.  That is because the Dion family of which we are part had a way of keeping a lot of stuff to themselves.  Besides, at about 6 years old, who was going to tell me anything?  Then there is the father himself, the fiery Redhead who didn't make it to 40.  In his tracks, then, there are those, many, who never made it to 50.  There are a few who made it to the 60's, including Ora, but that was the ceiling for that generation.  Now, here we are, living in the shadow of that history.  Even the long lived Thibault and DeGray connections didn't do that much to stretch things out.  But it did help.  I'm going to try to list things down here.  I beg of you to help me if you see that I've missed the boat somewhere along the line.
Eugene Dion, the original Red Head, died at around 37
Cecile Gelinas, nee Dion was 25 -- She was my first experience with death and wakes, etc.  It '42 or '43, I think.
EFR Dion died at 47
Al Dion died at a younger age than that
Norma Dion was perhaps around 45 - 47
Grace DeGray, nee Dion was not yet 50, I don't think
Normand was over 50 but I doubt he made it to 60, maybe he did
Ed also was over 60, he was born before Don and died before Don
Don made it to somewhere in the mid 60's
That's the 8 of them.  I think that I had some wind of a still birth or two, but I am uncertain of that.
Many of these departures are of the here today, gone tomorrow  variety.  And it's not just Dion.  Thibaults and De Grays like that kind of escape.  Matter of fact, I sincerely pray every single day that God grant me that favor too.
Perhaps more than many families, we live our daily lives in the presence of the end.  I don't know how you all deal with this stark reality in our lives.  I personally have a way of looking at it with two eyes, the one making the other sure of the truth of what is seen.  Like the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air, the end of what we can touch and feel is sure to come.  That end though, in my life is the beginning of another, more glorious existence.  I am blessed in that I have no doubts about that.  I know that some are not so sure about what happens when you don't wake up the next morning.  I, for one am absolutely sure of what happens when you don't wake up the next morning -- You don't have to report to work, that's what.  That's enough to make a lot of people happy, isn't it?  Be honest now, how many of you go to bed saying, "Oh Lord, please wake me up so I can rush off to work tomorrow."???  Not me.  But I do go to bed with all kinds of plans to start work early because I have to get so much done every day.  But hey, like I said earlier, it could be that I'll never remember what happened anyway.  Maybe I get to the Pearly Gates and say, "Whoa, some retrofit they put on this place!"  Ol' Peter will say, "This is not that place...and by the way, what are you doing here?  It's too soon for you.  We're not done building the dog house yet."  So that's why I'm still here.  Heaven doesn't have a place for me yet.  Beelzebub doesn't want me because he hates my guts.  He's sure that I'm better at what he does than he is.  He's always after Lucifer not to pull the trigger yet because he's afraid to loose his job as number two coal stoker of the Inferno.  So, at this rate, all you 60 somethings out there, give it up.  As long as I keep getting up off the floor after falling out of bed in the morning, that job in Hell is mine.  At least for the time it's going to take Heaven to get a broom closet cleaned out for me.  
When that happens, you will not Cry at my Funeral because you'll know that I either got the place to stay in Heaven or the job I took away from Beelzbub.

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN HELL! BAD WEEK, PART 2

Hellfire and Brimstone.
NOT.
I have put up this picture of hell because the traditional picture of fire, Lucifer's forked tail and three pronged pitch fork doesn't translate the reality of hell.  Mostly because like heaven, hell is not a place.  it is a mode of being.  Traditionally, fire has been the suffering of choice in descriptions of hell.  This serves us well on the level of our imagination concerning the worst possible way to suffer, but is does nothing to make the reality of hell more understandable to us.  No matter what we say or think, hell remains a mystery of faith.  This does not make it any the less real, it just says that we will not understand its existence fully as long as we exist here on earth.  Last week, in public, during a teaching session on purgatory and limbo, I said that the suffering in hell was caused by the absolute absence of God.  One of the listeners in the audience promptly called my attention to the fact that if what I had just said were true, then hell would not exist, since God is the one who IS existence and who therefore maintains what IS, in existence.  I was caught off guard, was a little  surprised at myself.  So, when you have your grass cut, you have to hope that the sun will shine and help you turn it into hay.  Right?  So that's what I've been trying to all week, all the while living with my mistake.  One day, out of the blue, came the answer.  Believe me, it was out of the blue.  Someone in a room was talking about Beelzebub and someone else said, "Yeah, even he believes in God.  Why isn't he saved?"  Hey, I didn't get distracted by the undertones and overtones of that challenge.  I had just found some consolation to my sadness.  Now I had two proofs that I had made a real error.  Not only was God present in some way in hell itself because of His support of its existence, but He was present there in the minds of those who are condemned to suffer forever.  Let me say that if you ever make an error, it is always a good feeling to discover that you were only half wrong.
Allow me therefore to present you with the catechetical statement of the Catholic Church about the nature of suffering in hell:  " Hell's principal punishment consists of eternal separation from God in whom alone man can have the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs." [1057 Catechsim of the Catholic Church]  So now I know that I was only 1/3 wrong.  God is in hell in some way because He supports its existence, he is known by those being punished and their punishment is caused by the fact that the longing that have for him in their hearts will never be fulfilled.  In any and all events, and all things being equal, wrong is wrong and I stand corrected.  I am now about to catch up on the sleep that I lost before bringing myself to this sincere apology.  It really feels good.