The Bible reports that King Antiochus died disappointed, alone and “in bitter grief.” He had pursued power and glory in this world and it had failed to satisfy him as his life ended. Contrast that with the words of Jesus: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Death which seems like such a bright dividing line from the human perspective is, from the divine point of view, simply enetering into a different kind of living. In the tradition we speak of the Church Triumphant — those who are in heaven, the Church Militant — those still resisting evil in this life, and the Church Suffering — those awaiting their entrance into heaven from Purgatory. The important point in those distinctions is that there is one Church with Christ as the head. Whether on this side of death or the other we are in the hands of God. We honor the saints, we remember the ancestors because they have not gone away from us, just ahead of us. That is why the poet can say, “Death, be not proud for thou are not mighty and dreadful.”
