Yarhrzeit – Year Time, a reflection on loss, grief, and going forth

Light the candle

In Judaism the one year anniversary of someone’s passing is called yarhzeit – which essentially means “year time.” At this time a candle is lit, kaddish is prayed, and the deceased person’s headstone is unveiled. That person is gone, but they are remembered with love forever and each year yarhzeit is noted.

I grew up in a very Italian neighborhood, either immigrants or the children of those immigrants. Our parish was a very Italian one, it was built by hand by using stones, a small but beautiful worship space.

When someone died, everything went black for the following year. The women all wore black, often pictures were veiled. Life was somber as they mourned their departed loved one. Any big celebrations, weddings included, were canceled or postponed.

My mother was Irish Catholic and she found the entire business dreadful and far too mournful for her cultural sensibility. Don’t wear black when I die, she’d say, don’t cry and cancel things. Just remember that I lived, and send me off with joy and love. When she did die, many years later, I wore a red dress to her funeral, one that she loved to see me in. Some people were scandalized, but I had not doubt I was doing the right thing.

How I digress – anyway, the one year anniversary of a death was as important to my Irish Catholic mother as it was to our Italian Catholic neighbors, as well as to our Jewish friends and relatives. We just marked it differently.

Yesterday, October 8, 2022, was the one year anniversary of the death of my former boss Fr. Jerry Gingras. A garden was created in his memory and it was dedicated before the 5pm mass. The combined choirs of our three parishes sang, there were prayers and a reading from the Book of Genesis. It was very beautiful and deeply moving. Our new pastor Fr. Tom Konopka is deeply pastoral and is trying to shepherd us all as we move from death back into life.

That’s me reading about the second day of creation.

Death and loss impacts each of us differently. Grief has myriad facets and no two people experience it in the same way. Because Fr. Jerry died unexpectedly, the suffering of our parish communities was something akin to a ginormous water balloon hurled to the ground. The rubber snapped, the water exploded, things went flying, we were soaked in sorrow. It was such a difficult time.

Here we are one year later, each of us experiencing our on-going grief and mourning in a different fashion. Sometimes the grief of another makes us want to ask them what’s wrong with them. To our own wounded eye, we see someone who is either suffering too much, or someone who seems aloof. We see disrespect where there is simply an emotional distance from where we stand. We grow impatient with one another as we attempt to hold each other up and muddle along.

All of this is part of the grieving process. It does kind of suck, but it is necessary.

Anne Roiphe wrote this: “Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.” Those words are where I find myself as October 9, 2022 dawns. May this year ahead be full of that remaking of life, remember and holding all that was in our hearts, and going forward in hope.

Fr. Jerry we miss you so much, but we know you are with us. We go forward in faith from here.

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Hosanna and destiny

Each week at mass we pray these words aloud in song or prayer…

Hosanna, in the highest!

Today the words take on a deeper meaning as we celebrate Palm Sunday, remembering Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

There are studies upon studies to reveal just what lengths humans will go to in order to

Least ones

Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’  – Matthew 25:44

You have likely seen the dramatic photos of a little boy above, all over the internet right now. This precious little one appears to be asleep – think of all the toddlers

You shall not kill

A question has nagged me all during Lent, and now sits front and center on Good Friday. That question is: why do we kill one another?

Well, why do we kill one another? The Fifth Commandment states: “You shall not kill.” This seems very clear, but as human beings we seem to find numerous ways to rationalize a great deal of killing, and even more ways of denial when it comes to deaths we might be able to prevent. Consider how poverty, hunger, drugs, lack of medical care, human trafficking, the death penalty, torture, and war are the tip of the iceberg.

People die every day and not all of them are killed, but we will focus on those who are killed. I’m going to back up for a moment and pose my original question again: why do we kill one another?

We kill one another all the time, and seemingly with great ease. A few things that come to mind are the great bargains on the clothes we like to wear, getting good prices on flights, putting out-of-season produce on our tables, shaking our heads – whether with

From Death into Life

(On November 2 the Church celebrates the Feast of All Souls, the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. This is an essay that came to me last week, about beauty, life, impermanence, death, and eternal life.)

The air was crisp and cold as I arrived at work that day, a slight breeze that made my cheeks tingle. I shivered slightly and gazed upward as I exited my car, feeling awe as I glanced at the towering maple at the edge of the parking lot. Its shimmering gold and red leaves determinedly clinging to branches that extended like an extravagant and colorful awning over my vehicle.

At the end of the workday a still-blue sky greeeted me, but it was showing hints of dimming, and the breeze had stilled. Pausing at the door, I inhaled deeply and took in the feeling that comes from that certain scent of autumn.  As I walked to my car, I noticed the carpet of fallen yellow leaves at my feet. Crunch, crunch, with each footfall, crunch crunch. CRUNCH. Must have been an acorn that time! It was as if nature had installed an early warning system, to alert my car to my presence.

Looking skyward, I found that the brilliantly colored canopy of maple that had captivated me earlier in the day was a bit more sparse. A bit?! All those leaves that seemed to tightly grip the branches a few hours earlier had finally accepted the decision to let go. The image of them floating down to the ground, like jewels cast from the hand of a generous monarch to the peasants at their feet. At that moment, all I could feel was sadness that the remarkable palette of color that has been spanning the sky for a few weeks was almost gone.

Almost to my car, with fallen leaves fanning out in every direction underfoot, I heard the words these words in my heart:

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. John 12:24

That gorgeous towering maple has been growing for more years than I can imagine. Once part of a forest, it remains, sitting at the edge of a church parking lot.  The tree, God’s patient and loyal sentinel, continues to keep watch with patience and dignity.

My sense of sadness began to lift as I stood next to my car. The fallen leaves, like the grain of wheat, remind me of the impermanence of one aspect of life, and the eternity of all life. A sense of remarkable beauty, consolation and peace encompassed my being. Life into death into life.

In November the Church remembers its saints and its beloved deceased in a special way. I am grateful for the reminder of how death is a part of life, seen on that day through the lens of fallen leaves, and wheat.

Good Friday

Today is a day of suffering and death. Whether we realize it or not, both suffering and death unite us; these are things we all share, whether we want to or not. And who wants to suffer or die? Or to watch those whom we love, suffer or die? And then there is betrayal.

Rich, poor, black, white, Catholic, atheist, Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative. We all suffer, we all die. And most likely, we are all betrayed at some point in our lives; generally more than once, and in ways that shock and astound us.

What kind of God would want to come to be one of us and experience all of these things? I can’t imagine, but I am deeply grateful for a God who has done this for us. This is not about the hairshirt, making ourselves suffer, and other self-inflicted atonement related choices. I actually am not down with that, if you pardon my choice of phrase. Remember, we did discuss that at the beginning of Lent.

The two photos are from the blog, Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo, where Dina serves up photos, information, and wisdom. You can read more about what these photos are by going over there. Hint: only evidence of crucifixion. Not Jesus’ crucifixion though.)

Given that we are all faced with such things, I am grateful for a God that unites with us in suffering and death, and then offers the gift of eternal life. That all sounds nice, but the reality is that there is so much pain out there, I see it everywhere. And then I wonder , is there hope also? I can’t help but hold onto it, like a piece of styrofoam keeping me afloat on a tumultuous sea.

This day makes no sense in so many ways, no matter what I have just said. And yet, conversely, without this day, life as I understand it makes no sense at all either.