Solemnity of the
Ascension of the Lord
Cycle A
June 1, 2014 4pm, 10:30am and 12 noon
Saint Margaret
Parish, Bel Air
Tuesdays
with Morrie
I imagine that many of us have
heard of the book “Tuesdays with Morrie.”
It was first published in 1997 and
was soon made into a movie. The book has
remained well-known.
Tuesdays with Morrie is about a university professor, Doctor Morrie
Schwartz, and a Detroit sportswriter, Mitch Albom. Morrie Schwartz had been Mitch Albom’s
teacher and mentor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
In 1994, Doctor Schwartz was
diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
He was told that he had a year to live and he decided to do just that –
to live his last year to the fullest.
Morrie Schwartz was even
interviewed on ABC’s Nightline
program. He talked about what he was
learning through his illness.
Mitch Albom saw this program and decided
to visit his former professor. This was the
first of fourteen visits -- all on Tuesdays.
Morrie’s Messages
These visits became the content
of Mitch Albom’s book, Tuesdays with
Morrie.
In these visits, Morrie Schwartz
expressed the importance of transcending the violence and hatred in our culture. He reflected on life, suffering, family,
marriage, aging, and death.
Naturally, Doctor Schwartz’s
perspective was as a man facing his own death.
And his reflections brought a whole new perspective to Mitch Albom.
Mitch had been overwhelmed with
work and he was desperate for love and meaning.
In their last visit, Morrie Schwartz really summed up things.
He said that “As long as we love each other, and remember the feeling of love we
had, we can die without really going away.
All the love you created is still there.
“You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched or nurtured
while you were there. Death ends life
[as we know it, but] not a relationship.”
Jesus’ Messages
Those reflections of Morrie
Schwartz are similar to what we hear from Jesus.
Jesus has taught great
lessons to the apostles. He has taught
them, above all else, to become loving persons – to love God as God has loved
us, and to love one another as we love ourselves.
Jesus sums up all of this
as he is about to return to the Father. He
then leaves the apostles bodily, physically, visibly.
But Jesus has told the
apostles that he will continue to be with them and us through his Holy Spirit. In effect, something similar to what Morrie
Schwartz said, Jesus is saying that his ascension or return to the Father ends life
as we know it, but not a relationship.
This means that we live
with Jesus present within us and he empowers us to live out of this inner
center of love. This is how life
continues with Jesus.
And, I want to add, this
is also how we are to view our living on with a loved one who has died. And on the other hand, it is how we are to
look upon our remaining with our loved ones after we have died.
