Alas Poor Yorick

Praying for the resurrection of the body and soul

11/02/2023

Jn 6:37-40 Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

Today on the Commemoration of All Souls, the Church invites us to reflect on the experience of death. Death is certainly a sad subject, but it can also be very spiritually fruitful. Many years ago seminarians were encouraged to keep a human skull on their desk in their room. That may seem morbid to the modern mentality, but the idea was to remember that we will all one day die and to be prepared for the next world.

I would like to mentally place a skull in front of you in this homily, and reflect on the reality of death. I want to be like Hamlet holding the skull of his friend and saying, “Alas poor Yorick! I knew him well!” I would like us to get to know death well. Let me suggest four observations about death.

First, we cannot scientifically pinpoint the moment of death. Of course doctors write the time of death on a person’s death certificate. But that medical judgement is based on signs of the body: the prolonged cessation of a heartbeat, or the irreversible end of brainwave function. But death is not primarily a biological event, but a spiritual event. That is, the real moment of death is when the soul leaves the body, and that is beyond the acumen of the most brilliant medical mind.

I remember they taught us in seminary that if you come to the hospital and the doctor has already pronounced the patient dead, you should feel the person’s arm. If his or her arm is still warm, you can still give the anointing of the sick. Why? Well, because we do not know the mysterious moment when the soul leaves the body, so err on the side of hope – hopefully the soul is still there – and anoint anyway. So the first point is that the death of a human being – unlike the death of an animal – is a spiritual event, the separation of the body and soul.

Secondly, the moment of death is the mirror opposite of the moment of life. That is, just as death is the separation of the body and soul, so the moment of life is the union of the body and soul. This fact is why Catholics are adamantly prolife. We are convinced that a new human being has burst onto the stage at the moment of conception. Why do we hold that view? Because we believe conception is when God infuses a spiritual soul into that union of a sperm and egg called a zygote or embryo.

In other words, new human beings do not come into existence simply by the sexual act of a man and a woman, but also requires an act of God. Each parent provides 23 chromosomes, but only God can supply the soul. The moment of conception, therefore, is the union of the body and soul. And consequently, the true moment of death is the separation of the body and soul. The second point is that conception and death are opposite but closely related human experiences.

The third point as we stare at this skull, and this is based more on faith than fact, more on Scripture than science, is that if Adam and Eve had never eaten the forbidden fruit, human beings would not have experienced death. For most modern people that statement causes a brain cramp because it seems ludicrous to believe that humans would not have died. This is why I said this observation about death is based more on faith than fact, more on Scripture than science.

But if we grant that death is essentially a spiritual experience, the separation of the body and the soul, then sin, like the original sin of Adam and Eve, created a fissure in that intimate bond between body and soul. And every time we commit personal sins (gluttony or greed, lust or laziness), that fissure grows into a fault line.

Think of the fault line in California called the San Andreas Fault. One day that geological fault line may make California into an island in the Pacific Ocean when it is entirely separated from the mainland. In the same way, our sins contribute to the spiritual fault line between the body and soul, until one day we die, when the soul is separated from the mainland of the body.

If human beings had never sinned, there would never have been a fissure or fault line between the body and soul, and thus no death. Why? Because death is essentially a spiritual event: the separation of the body and the soul. The fourth point, therefore, is the causal connection between sin and death: if we didn’t have sin, we wouldn’t have death.

And the fourth point is what we are doing today: praying for the dead. We have erected an altar for the poor souls in Purgatory. But notice our prayers are not only for the salvation of souls (although we often say that). Rather, our real hope and prayer is for the resurrection of bodies. In other words, the end goal of human existence is not for the soul to make it to heaven and the body to rot in the earth. Instead, our final beatitude in heaven will be the resurrection of the body from the grave and the reunion of the body and soul like at the first moment of conception.

Can you see how all these four points fit tightly together? They are logically inseparable. Death is the separation of the body and soul. Conception is the initial union of the body and soul in our mother’s womb. Sin causes a fissure and fault line between body and soul leading to death. Finally, we pray for the glorious reunion of the body and soul on the great day of resurrection. Jesus said in today’s gospel: “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (raise the body) on the last day.” We pray that even alas poor Yorick’s skull will be reunited with his soul.

Praised be Jesus Christ!