IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

Jack Francis passed away and was buried from St. Sebastian this past week.  He barely took a breath of earth’s air before passing on to the next world.  There was scarce time for water to be poured over his head and the Trinity invoked.  A short life by our standards to be sure.  One that had yet to be started if we measure life by successive birthdays.

 

Yet he lived!  He had a name!  He was loved!  The kingdom of heaven swelled with his tender soul added to saints of heaven.  He shall spend the rest of eternity praising God and intercessing for those of us who will have to wait years/decades before we are able to enjoy the vision he now enjoys.

 

I thought of Jack before he was born though I did not know his name.  I think of all mothers with their children in their womb coming up in the Communion line.  What a blessed place to be for that child.  To live within the tabernacle of the Lord as his mother received Communion and he shares the same resting place as His Lord and God.

 

His life is tragic only to us.   We are terribly sad that we did not have the opportunity to enjoy watching him grow and learn the way we grow and learn.  But really, he is so far beyond us now in wisdom and knowledge for He is before all Truth, all Love, all Goodness, all Beauty.

 

Certainly we can never be happy about the situation no matter what joy we imagine young Jack may be experiencing.  But our sadness, our disappointment is not without hope.  Jack was already gift, for we feel the loss and out tears tell of how valued the gift was.  And though we may not experience the gift to the extent we wished, we look on with the words of Charles Dickens:

 

“Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will
teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn,
and is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the
innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the
panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy,
charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear
that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is
born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps there
spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path
becomes a way of light to Heaven.”