The Communion of Saints

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

Perhaps we had hurt that person, or he or she had hurt us, and it was never fully reconciled. Or we feel guilt, because while that person was alive, we should have given more of ourselves to him or her but were too busy with our own lives to reach out.

Worse still, perhaps someone has died for whom we had felt hatred and we should have made some gesture of reconciliation and we never did. Now it’s too late! Death has separated us, and some painful bitterness now lies irrevocably unresolved and we live with the guilt, wishing we had done something before it was too late.

But it’s not too late. It’s never too late if we take seriously the Christian doctrine of the communion of saints.  To believe in the communion of saints is to believe that those who have died are still alive and are linked to us in such a way that we can continue to talk with them, that our relationship with them can continue to grow, and that the reconciliation that wasn’t possible before their deaths can now occur.

“Today you will be with me in paradise!” Jesus speaks those words to the good thief on the cross and they’re meant for every one of us who dies without yet fully being a saint and without having had the time and opportunity to make all the amends and speak all the apologies that we owe to others. There is still time after death, on both sides, for reconciliation and healing to happen because inside the communion of saints we have privileged access to each other and there we can finally speak all of those words that we couldn’t speak before. We can reach across death’s divide.

It can be a great consolation to die a happy death, snug and reconciled in the arms of love, with no unfinished business. But, happily, there’s time still after death for this to happen for those of us who aren’t so lucky and who end up dying with some bitterness, anger, wound, and frustration still gnawing away.

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