Two Crowds, Two Hopes, Two Deaths

On Easter afternoon, Terri Schiavo continued her journey out of this world as fanatics proclaimed with diabolical certainty the possibility of its reversal. Their shouting made a mockery of the Easter message. We must hope that somehow, deep in her own soul, Mrs. Schiavo nevertheless felt the embrace of a God who grieved more than earthly creatures ever could the body that betrayed her. Four days later, that embrace became the only one that counted.

The scene was quite different in Vatican Square, where crowds prayed and sang quietly, respectfully, and joyfully as Karol Wojtyla lay dying in his apartment above them. Repeatedly, people expressed a sense of solidarity with each other, along with profound affirmations of the rightness of things, things present and things to come. The Easter message was everywhere evident. One spokesman for the church spoke eloquently of Christ’s holding the doors of heaven open to its dying Pope.

Two very different scenes, two very different crowds. What made the difference? Certainly not the respective importance of the two dying persons. As John Paul II would have been the first to insist, in God’s sight Terri and he were equals in partaking of an infinite and sacred value, and of the same destiny. The difference lay in what their respective followers had allowed themselves to hope. Terri Schiavo’s parents, and those who egged them on, fixated only on a physical body restored to health and a long earthly life, with new brain cells and with the ravages of an eating disorder gone forever. By contrast, the Pope’s fellow believers focused on what St. Paul termed the “spiritual body,” whose physiognomy God intends us to recognize only in the kingdom to come.

Although it is likely to remain obscure to those who decry Terri Schiavo’s death as “judicial murder,” it is blindingly clear to most everyone else that, for a long time, the question of her eternal destiny has been the only really relevant question. The question of what might have been left for her in this life was asked and answered, bluntly and searingly, years ago. Asking it again, and again, and yet again was little short of obscene, as was praying for a miracle in just her particular case, with a shocking indifference to every other human being also living in a “permanent vegetative state.” What we will all remember about John Paul II is that he left this world with grace and serenity, an example for all of us to follow in the face of our own death.
br> Where might we get any kind of handle at all on what we can hope not only for Terri Schiavo, but for all whose bodies have made of their souls prisoners with no prospect of escape in this life? The celebration of Easter --- the season and not just the Sunday --- is surely a good place to look, perhaps the best place. For one of the most important things that the Easter story offers is the encouragement to let go of what we were all like when our bodies worked well and looked good. If flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and we have it on good authority that this is in fact true, then these bodies --- however impressive they might have been once upon a time --- never were meant to go anywhere anyway.

One detail in the Fourth Gospel’s Easter narrative that has long puzzled me is the outwardly callous remark that Jesus is reported to have made to a weeping Mary Magdala at the tomb: “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” (John 20:17) What compounds its unfeeling character is that a week later, Jesus went far out of his way to invite Thomas to do just this, to reassure himself of being in the presence of the Lord by probing his hands and his side. (20:27) On Easter Sunday afternoon, watching two crowds of people confront death in two very different ways, I think I finally figured out at least something of what he was talking about: don’t cling to the wrong things at the wrong times.

Martin Luther got the first part of this right: “let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.” And the Johannine tradition got the second part right: on their respective ways to the Father, the last thing that Jesus, the Pope, and Terri Schiavo needed were faithful followers or distraught family members trying to hold them back. And neither will we.