Baxter doesn’t like it when I leave for an extended time. I try not to tell him. I hide the suitcase, talk about the trip outside of his hearing, and never allude to someone else looking after him for a while. Nevertheless, Baxter somehow gets a whiff that I’m going away, and he objects. If he does find the suitcase, he lies down in it, hoping I won’t notice him, so that I will inadvertently pack him with my clothes. If that strategy fails, Baxter won’t let me out of his sight. Wherever I go, he follows. Whatever chair I sit in, he climbs next to me or on me. If I’m working on something, he sits in front of me and stares, refusing to let me out of his sight. Baxter feels anxious at just the thought of my being away from him. He’s afraid to be alone for fear of being abandoned.
We can get this way as well. We often don’t want to admit it, but we rely upon certain people to be in our lives. We take it for granted. Then, if something changes and they aren’t there in the same way any longer, we get upset and anxious. Maybe they grow up and move out of the homestead. Maybe they move out of town for work and career opportunities. Maybe they pass from our lives because they no longer live on this earth as we do. Age, disease or illness has taken them away from us. Whatever the reason, we feel alone and abandoned. Our daily routines are disrupted because the people who were part of them aren’t there any longer. Our sense of well-being is lost. We wonder what to do with our time, why to put effort into some ordinary chores like cooking and cleaning, how to weave our lives back into the human fabric we have worn for many years. When someone significant is now missing, it’s hard to go on as usual, because the usual partners in life aren’t there.
But as Saint Paul says, “This is our reason to hope.” We believe that we are never alone and abandoned. The deep, personal, significant influences we have had on each other aren’t lost by distance or time. They ripen and mature. We learn to appreciate the sacrifices made on our behalf when we are called to make them for others. Children learn how deeply their parents loved them when they become parents themselves. Students value how excellent teachers nurture and challenge them to learn more when they graduate from that school. A friendly neighborhood is a gift we take for granted until we find ourselves in a world of strangers, uninterested in each other. We make these imprints on each other wherever we are for however long we live. Those who have loved us and touched our lives significantly get under our skin, and, in a way, become part of us even when we are apart.
This is one of the ways we are made in God’s image. God acts to shape our lives by sending His disciples to teach us His ways by the example they set and the influence they have on us. This is the core of faith formation. The way we show each other God’s ways in our world involves a sharing of life experiences that create memories and understandings of what is important that cannot be forgotten. Our physical circumstances may change, but these marks of faithful living will endure like tattoos that become part of our make up. We may miss the physical presence of the persons who left their mark on us, but we can never erase their spiritual influence that marked our souls with their faith.
This is the communion of saints we so often profess in our creed. We become who we are through this communion we share in living, and we never become detached from it, even if we try. Our loved ones, living and dead, are praying for us and with us, moving us through our memories to make faith-filled decisions, and supporting us through their gentle, quiet presence that tells us we are not alone, not abandoned. We can try to run away from them, but we cannot get away from them. We live bonded by the grace of this holy communion.
So, Baxter, I may leave for a while, but I am not gone. Neither are any of the friends and family whose love has shaped us to value certain things, live a certain way, and see ourselves as all God’s children
together striving for eternal life.
Monsignor Statnick
