Together after Ordinary Time

They sat together at Mass for many years, he in the aisle seat and she to his right, Sunday after Sunday of their married life. Suddenly, however, death parted them as it eventually parts all, at least for a time. He was no longer at her side, politely motioning for her to enter the pew before him.

She now keeps the aisle seat empty beside her, saying — sometimes with good cheer, sometimes with wistful melancholy — “That’s his seat.”  We all know what these three words mean to her, and the grief and the hope embedded in them.

In this month of November, the Church invites our gaze to what lies after this life. Our hearts are drawn toward our loved ones who have passed from this world to the next, with prayerful hope that one day we will see them again in the presence of God. A widow’s simple act of saving a seat for her husband is, for me, a visible way of expressing that hope.

With great love, it is clear that she misses him. Yet, when she says “that’s his seat,” it is also clear that in some profound way, far beyond mere sentimentality, she knows that what they shared is not gone. She knows, in a way not fully understandable on this side of life, that he is still with her and, somehow, still by her side. For me, her seating arrangement is a tangible expression of the way in which death does not truly separate us from those we love.           

I have also thought, often, that there is something very beautiful about the way in which her simple witness to the hope of eternity happens at Mass. There are many special times and places in which we seek to draw closer to those we have loved and lost. All of us who have mourned know the inexplicable paradox that it is in the most important moments and special places of our lives that both the absence and the presence of our loved ones are most deeply felt. This happens so often in old childhood homes, at favorite vacation spots, at gatherings around holiday dinner tables and at family weddings or birthday celebrations.

Yet, it is at Mass that we know heaven and earth meet in a way unlike any other time or place here on earth. It is here that the Catechism teaches that “we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims.” I can read this, and believe it to be true. I can hear this taught by those whose faith I trust. I can read scholarly discourse on the way in which Mass unites us with all the saints of heaven. I can look at stunningly beautiful paintings in which gifted artists do their best to illustrate this glorious communion. 

In spite of all this, however, this mystery is beyond my grasp. The idea that I can join in prayer with all the saints of heaven is something that lies beyond my human understanding.

But when the profound mystery is too much to fathom, the simple sight of an empty seat a few rows in front of me is a simple, welcome reminder that what was, what is now, and what is to come are not as separate as they can seem to be. It is a reminder to hold hope that my loved ones with whom I shared this finite life will someday share the fullness of life with me. And it is a reminder to pray that we will be together again at the end of our ordinary times.  

Lucia A. Silecchia is a professor of law at the Catholic University of America. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at [email protected].