November and its significance

It seems that we Maltese have set dates for everything and our calendar is always full. We have set dates for five public holidays, we have set dates for our own town or village's annual do and we have a set date for visits to our bereaved loved ones at the cemetery. And come November we make it a point to go light a candle and place a bouquet of flowers on the grave of our departed.

But whereas other dates carry with them cheer and festivity, November is sombre. It is the month of duty towards our loved ones and the activity tingles our thoughts not only on remembering the fact that our dear ones now are no more, but also edges us up to the reality that one day, sometime, some place, we will have to join them, and the thought sends down a shiver through our spine.

We all know several people who have died and some were very close to us. And now they are no more. And yet in the modern God-rejecting world, death is ignored by most people and considered as something that happens to soldiers, or victims of car accidents, or to elderly people, or people suffering from terminal diseases, or victims of national disasters, somewhere very far away, or simply of those one reads about in the newspapers. Most will not face the reality that death can and may actually happen to them.

We live in a civilisation which for all its modern techniques confuses our minds and tends to suffocate this reflection.

Most are infected with the notion that the world of "here and now", is real and the afterlife a shadow. And for most "Heaven" is realised when they make earthly life better. But if we look at life without any spiritual inspiration, we see man only as a physical, temporal creature, entirely dependent upon a metabolic process of muscles, nerves, sinews and bone, upon blood and air and upon food and water. Just a living organism, a terrible, fragile temporary creature created from the elements of the ground.

We know that we were made from dust and return to become just dust. Genesis (3:19) is very clear about this: "For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return". But Genesis (2:7) also declares that: "God formed Man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul."

People everywhere are today asking the cause of their existence, an existence free from wars, violence and social injustice and yearn for a solution. People want to know about that mysterious power that set life in motion and to look to Him to eradicate the mishaps that are besetting them. Man is thirsting for a better life, away from politics, poverty, sickness and economic instability because people cannot live alone without love, without feeling for one another and without doing their bit to help each other.

And this is the secret of living a better life and preparing for the life hereafter. Love and faith go together. We must love God above all else and our neighbour as ourselves.

Whatever our job in life, we will surely do it better if our efforts are grounded on trust in God and a desire to save others. Trusting in God and having faith in Him will also give us strength, especially in such dire moments as those times for example when we lose a dear beloved. When all suddenly darkens and we are blinded by grief we are sure to find solace if we look up to Him. An epitaph on one of the marble monuments at the cemetery epitomises all that we have been saying:

"At the end of the road, there is a gate, through which everyone has to pass alone.

And there in a light which we cannot see, Our Father welcomes again those that are His.

And inside that gate our dear ones find happiness and rest

And us, who are still here find solace in the thought, that God who loves us, knows that which is best."