The dead are not in the cemetery, the place of the "mortal remains", but they continue their existence in the fullness of God, this is the meaning of "They will rest from their labours".
The rest to which the author refers does not indicate the cessation of activities, but the divine condition, as the Creator who "did the work he had done and rested on the seventh day" (Gn 2,2).
With death the individual rests on the works carried out in his earthly existence, but he is called to collaborate in the creative action of God by communicating life to men: "Whoever has entered into his rest also rests from his works, as God from his own" (Heb 4:10).
Death does not lead to an eternal rest in the sense of a divine idleness for all eternity, but to active and life-giving collaboration with the action of the Creator.
In this creative action the love that the deceased had for his loved ones is not weakened, but enriched with the same power of love of the Father. Death does not relax human relationships, but it enhances them.
The only thing that man brings with him to the new dimension of life are the works carried out in his earthly existence. The works by which man has transmitted life to others, are his wealth, what have made eternal life already in this existence, triggering in the individual a process of transformation that is not stopped by death, but enhanced.
Father Alberto Maggi
(Montefano, 2 November 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment