what's our mark?

What is the most important text, symbol or mark on a tombstone?

Some would say, the maxims added by the family; like ‘A loving father and husband’, or ‘Forever Remembered’. Some would say perhaps that it is our surname that explains our life’s ‘DNA’. Still others would insist that it is the day of our birth; the day we sprang to life in this world.

But what of the dash or hyphen that’s engraved between the date of birth and the date of death? That little inconspicuous mark says nothing but contains everything. This mark signifies our entire life. And only God knows precisely what this mark stands for.

Another important (maybe more so) mark on the tombstone is the date of death. In the Church, we celebrate a saint’s feast day on their anniversary of death not birth? This date marks the day of entrance into eternal life. It should actually be referred to as the date of our re-birth rather than death!

I’ll explain using words from Bishop Sheen; ”To a pagan, this world is everything and death deprives him of all there is; to the Christian, this world is only a scaffolding through which souls climb to the Kingdom of God. All during life, the pagan is moving toward death; but the Christian is moving backward. He starts with the fact that he must die and render an account of his (life) stewardship; knowing that he will die, he plans his life accordingly.”

In essence we (as Christians) live our life in reverse. With God time is irrelevant, so the direction of it is also extraneous. By the act of living, we move towards the beginning of our undying life. Therefore if we looked at our life in reverse; beyond our birth is really an end or using the thesaurus suggestion for ‘end’, our ‘death’. To summarize, our beginning in this world is actually our end, with no end going forward! All clear now?

I guess this is more to ponder..