Life Is Sad, But Also Beautiful
Michiel Peeters - It is beautiful that today, on the feast of All Saints, we may baptize Emil. All Saints’ Day marks the beginning of the week in which we recall that our lives on this earth have an end, that we have a final destination, and that that end is good, is fulfillment, is paradise, where everything will be fine and fulfilled. Today is All Saints: the feast of those who are in heaven, in the words of the Apocalypse: “A great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.” Tomorrow, we celebrate All Souls’ Day, asking God to welcome all those who have died into this grand feast.
In those who experience reality here on earth intensely, the longing for heaven, for a destination where everything is true and fulfilled, cannot help but grow.
Last year, the young Belgian writer Christophe Vekeman described his journey to faith in his book Tot God. He recalls a scene from his childhood in a Flemish village, where the old, very fat parish priest would occasionally visit his grandmother. He would drink large glasses of red wine while muttering, “Life is beautiful, but also sad.” And a moment later: “Life is sad, but also beautiful.”
Life is beautiful because it attracts us from our earliest childhood, as we can see in the eyes of even small Emil. It is also sad because everything we grasp is not enough, and it passes. Someone who lives a deeply human experience cannot help but desire a final destination where everything will be good, beautiful, in order, personal, shared, and loved. Even the hundredfold on earth, promised and experienced by those who follow and verify Christ, is not enough. Therefore, St Paul says to the Philippians: “I long to depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better” (Phil 1:23). Jesus confirms: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places…. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father.”
How do I get there? What must I do, what works must I perform to reach heaven? The Lord simply says, “Follow me.” “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” (John 6:29). If you follow me, stay with me, listen to me, and verify everything with your heart as the criterion, you will see great things, even here on earth: “You will see heaven open” (John 1:51) and become confident that the best is yet to come.
The gesture with which Jesus enters our lives and says, “Follow me,” is Baptism. Today, the Lord takes Emil by the hand, saying: Let the children come to me; and to the parents and the whole community: Follow me, so that your child, who sees and follows you, may come to know me and see heaven open; may walk through this life, growing as a person, growing in desire, coming to belong to the club of the Saints, of those who know: the best is yet to come. Life is beautiful because we walk to a wonderful destination, where they are already waiting for us.
Let’s long for heaven, as Saint John Henry Newman, who is being proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo at this moment. On his tomb, he inscribed: “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem / out of shadows and images into truth.”
