They didn't make it

These terrible words are often said when people die, especially when a group of people endure some intense, life-threatening event – a firefight, a terrorist attack, a tsunami, or a hurricane – and some of them do not survive.

They didn't make it.

These words are often said by those who did make it, who did survive: the grief-stricken survivors who contemplate both the deaths of their comrades and loved ones and also the life ahead they now will not share.

They didn't make it.

These words reflect what the Thessalonians thought, the ones to whom St. Paul wrote today's first reading (1 Thes.4:13-18). They were in that first great, glorious generation of believers and they were looking forward to the imminent return of Christ in glory. They were ready for him to come back and take them all to heaven.

But then some of them died, before the Lord Jesus could come to get them.

This was a doubly heavy blow to the survivors, who not only mourned the loss of their brothers and sisters in the Lord, but who even wondered whether their dead comrades would be deprived of a share in the life and glory of Christ’s second coming.

St. Paul's words of comfort to the Thessalonians are words of comfort for us as well.

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
about those who have fallen asleep,
so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,
so too will God, through Jesus,
bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

* * * * *

When I saw that this was the scheduled reading today – a day when thousands of people (including people I know - may God keep them all in his care) are threatened by death from a hurricane – I was disturbed. Was it a sign? The response for today’s responsorial psalm seemed especially ominous.

The Lord comes to judge the earth.

I can imagine Father Richard, who ministers in a close suburb of New Orleans, reading this line with his characteristically reverential solemnity as the storm thunders all around him and his flock.

The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Miserere nobis, Domine.

* * * * *

The bottom line of today’s first readings and today's events is best summed up, I think, by a verse from another of St. Paul’s epistles (Rom. 14:8).

For if we live,
we live for the Lord,
and if we die,
we die for the Lord;

so then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord's.

This is both a comfort and a challenge.

Whether we live or die this day, whether we face life's difficulties or face the Lord in judgment, we are the Lord's – he holds us in his hand and loves us in his mercy.

Have mercy on me, God, have mercy
for in you my soul has taken refuge.
In the shadow of your wings I take refuge
till the storms of destruction pass by.
(Psalm 57:2)

The challenge for us who remain, those who survive, is to live truly "for the Lord" – as men and women who belong to the Lord – not to live for our own safety or for our own pleasure, but to live every moment of our lives – every moment – for the good of others and for the glory of God.