Catholic
Spirituality
When
our final thirst is slaked …
Guest Columnist
Joan Forde
O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul
thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.
Thus have I gazed toward you in the sanctuary
to see your power and your glory …
I will remember you upon my couch, and through the night-watches I will
meditate on you:
That you are my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.
Psalm 63
Living wills, ethical wills, advanced care directives, and other end of
life preparations are in the news a lot lately. People of any age cannot
be admitted to a hospital for the smallest procedure without presenting
a document of their intentions in case things take a turn for the worse.
Macabre? Well, at least a bracing reminder that life as we know it will
not go on indefinitely, despite all those vitamin supplements and workouts.
But this end game awareness has started me off in the direction of thinking
about going one step further. Why not compose one’s own funeral
service? I don’t mean the occasional, oddball stories you see about
having a Dixieland band present, but the idea that we who are fortunate
enough to hope for a funeral Mass could think about the words and music
that might best express who, at the end, we want to be before our God.
How many meals, parties, weddings do we plan to the last detail, so concerned
that they will be meaningful, joyful, a reflection of who we are? But
without a thought, we leave our loved ones the job of putting together
a ceremony to celebrate the essence of our lives in just a few, hectic
days — days already flustered by anxiety and grief.
Well-intentioned parish bereavement committees can only do so much. Besides,
who would want a wedding, birthday party, or other milestone event planned
by a committee? A few years ago, in a frenzy of organization, I designated
a folder in which to assemble the details of my future funeral Mass, readings,
music, maybe a line or two of Emily Dickinson or Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Was it hubris to try to exercise such control? Would I be swept away by
some natural disaster without a trace for even thinking along those lines?
I solved these issues by avoiding the blue folder whenever it caught my
eye in the file cabinet. Such a concrete memento mori — what was
I thinking? “Later. I’ll get to it later,” I kept saying.
Until last night, at 3 a.m. I often wake up at that hour, alternately
blaming God or my mother’s hair-trigger nervous system.
But last night, it may have been God, since the first thing that popped
into my head was a snatch of Psalm 63: “My soul is thirsting for
You, O Lord, thirsting for You, my God.”
The catchy melody that I remembered along with it was, as Google told
me later, written by the contemporary sacred music composer Steve Angrisano.
Upbeat and much too lively for the middle-of-the-night, the music alone,
I mused, would merit my children’s amazed attention at the occasion
of my funeral.
But I was really excited about this perfect responsorial psalm coming
out of nowhere at that hour. It was a gift, absolutely what I wanted to
say my life was about in the long run — not accomplishments, or
talents or even precious relationships that have shaped me. These are
all contingent on that insistent and recurring thirst to know the God,
who is more intimate to me than I am to myself. God has never let me off
the hook about this. He has shown up over and over with this pull towards
him, even when — especially when — I am looking the other
way. We have a history.
I’m so am glad the psalms were not written in prose. The psalmist
always manages to get inside my heart with those gorgeous images.
At last I have something to put in the blue folder. The rest? Well, maybe
tomorrow. …
Father, Creator of unfailing light, give that same light to those
who call to You. May our lips praise You; our lives proclaim Your goodness;
our work give You honor and our voices celebrate You forever.
Joan Forde is a writer and member of Our Mother of Consolation Parish.