Church of the Redeemer | Iglesia del Redentor

Working for this sermon I did stumbled upon a rap by Christopher Wallace also known as Notorious B.I.G., a famous rapper who was killed in 1997. Fifteen days after his death, Wallace's double-disc second album was released as planned with the ironic title of Life After Death and hit #1 on the Billboard 200 charts. Interesting enough the album cover has a child sitting on the floor with a heading Ready to Die.

It is a premature question to be raise to a child and yet is a the reality of our lives. The moment we are born we ready to die, since the only requirement is to be alive.

Our mortality I think is one of those greatest questions of life. Question that normally expand beyond the here and now and explore questions of meaning and purpusoe.

We are often afraid of disappearing in the darkness of sleep.

We are afraid that our stories, our relationships, the things we did and the ones that we fail to accomplish, all of it, becomes consigned to oblivion.

Our fear of mortality is one of the reasons why we build big and solid, large monuments to posterity, trying to live in peoples memories. This is why Presidents worried about their legacy in the last year of their period.

Our fear of mortality is the reason why we father or mother children, so through our genes we can perpetuate our blood line and with it, to perpetuate ourselves.

Our fear of mortality is the reason for why we become involved in religion, so we can cast these questions in a wider set of structures that allows us to find meaning in spite of the finitude of our lives.

Today a member of the parish questioned me about this, she said that she is ready to die, and I replied that is question that can only be answered with integrity and honesty when you are about to.

So can we ask ourselves to even contemplate the theoretical question:

Am I ready to die?

Am ready to never see again the ugly days of wet snow?

Am ready to never know if the Health Care Bill was able to pass Congress?

Bye, Bye injustices of the world, of the road, of the work place, of my school, of my family, big and small hatreds and incoveniences.

Bye, Bye, cheating girl friend, boyfriend, husband or wife, bye ungrateful children, bye credit cards, brand name cloth, flat TV and blackberry.

Bye Michale Bloomberg, President Osama, bye Emmys, Oscars, glitter and bling.

I am gone, finished, my life is off.

A girl a few years ago came with her sister and boyfriend to ask for the ashes outside the mass, and after receiving them, she told me she wanted to know what the ashes meant. To which I responded, saying I am going to summarize everything about it in a few words. It means that you will die, your sister and boyfriend here will die, I will die, your mom and pop will die, we all will die. She burst into tears, I think it has never occurred to her.

The cross of ashes is not a cross, it is in fact a question mark

Am I ready to die?

Tonight, before I get home? Am I?

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the season where we ought to stop automatic acting and thinking, the season of pause and poder, the season of reassement, the season of go back to basic.

Am I ready to die?

The ashes on our foreheads drives the question home, touches your mortal body, warm for now with the cold of death.

On Easter at the end of this journey and lenten observation we will reminded that we are free from this seemingly vicious circle of birth and death, that throu the ministry of the Crucified we can go home to the Father, that death does not have the last word. But meanwhile, tonight, now, the question is written on our forehead, are you ready to die?

Use the this opportunity tonight, as Paul says to the Corinthian Church, this is the day of salvation. Take advantage and do an inventory of your life, ready to die to those things that only you know you need to die to, and after dying, began your walk to the proverbial light, not in the beyond of immensity but in the present, tonite, here in Astoria, New York.

Are you ready to die? The answer is only yours

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