A sermon at the burial of Mrs. Nadia Mardini, Church of Saint Philip the Apostle, Edmonton, Canada.
Before death there springs forth a great question, the question of existence after death, of this journey, a going without return. The question: where does man go? And what will he find there? Will we find mountains and seas, or will we find darkness and clouds, or nothing? Many religions and philosophies tried to answer what awaits us after.
Some held that man sleeps until he returns to this life. The pharaohs, for example, said that man goes to the judgment to be judged by the god. And the religions of Mesopotamia held that man descends to below the earth. And Plato held that man is freed and passes to the world of the forms. And some believe in a period of waiting between death and the day of resurrection, in which the dead person feels either rest and bliss or torment according to his deeds, and man settles either in Paradise (the abode of bliss) or in the fire (the abode of punishment). And others believe in rivers and gardens, or a hell of fire. Still others said that man is born anew in successive births.
Christianity does not answer this question, nor did it try to answer it, nor did it discuss it except from human curiosity sometimes, because the question that Christianity asked is not: what will we find there? But rather: whom will we find? This is the essential question that concerns all of life. This answer is bound to our life here and now; it touches us in our present and our thinking, our repentance and our prayer; this is the answer that fulfills our faith.
Whom will we find there? We will find Christ.
Why Christ? Is it because He is a judge? Or because He is the God who will distribute the reward and impose the punishment? We will find Christ there not for this nor for that, but because He is the final resting place of each one of us, the beloved homeland, the person in whom I find rest, the eternal embrace into which I shall throw myself. And the closest of examples is what lovers live. In love, when a man loves he says: I want nothing but to be with you, and to live in you. A loving poet says: from the beginning of creation I have been searching for a homeland for my brow. And in the language of divine love, we are searching for the final homeland in which we settle, and it is Christ.
On this plane, some pray to God that He might grant them Paradise and that they might attain joy and reward, and be saved from eternal punishment. And this is the state of a man who cares for the other in order to marry him for his wealth, that is, for what he possesses. But the true lover cares for the other and loves him for his own sake, not for what he possesses. And thus is the man who prays because he loves Jesus, who longs for Him and wants Him Himself. Therefore the lovers pray to God, saying: O Lord, whether I shall be in hell or in Paradise, it matters not, but, O Lord, where You are, there grant me to be, for there is my Paradise.
We pray to God, that He might cause His handmaid Nadia to dwell in Him, so that He might become her dwelling and her final homeland. This is our hope today when we pray, after her life here with illness, toils, and joys, after a life tinged with much sorrow at times and joy at times. We pray that she may be there, in the heart of God, where there is the eternal joy that never ends.