"This 16x20 oil painting is called The Assumption of Bertha Huber. It is the third version I have done of this theme. Miss Huber was godmother to my three children. She died at age 87 in August, 1975 and I told the children I would paint what it 'really' looked like.
"Miss Huber was from Munich so I know she was expecting nice blond angels waiting for her in heaven...
"At the bottom of the painting is supposed to be me and the three children weeping for her at the nursing home where she had expired just moments before our arrival. It was a very good nursing home, by the way, named Calvary, in the Bronx."
We pray that one day the Lord will take us to himself at the time of our passing from this life to life forever with God: one day the hands reaching down in Wilson's painting will reach out for you and me. No, we will not be assumed body and soul: this mortal coil of ours will undergo the inevitable corruption of nature. Yet one day, we pray and hope, the Lord will waken each of us to glory and our souls will be reunited with our bodies in a glorified state, the beauty of which we cannot yet imagine.
I remember being called, some years ago, to visit and pray with a woman who was dying. Margaret was only a few weeks shy of her 103rd birthday! I saw her only hours before her death and yet she was as sharp as a tack, greeting me by name, thanking me for coming to see her, and joining wholeheartedly in the prayers I offered with her and for her.
But there were moments during my visit when Margaret seemed distracted from our conversation, straining to see something above her that I couldn't see. And several times she turned her head, as if to listen more closely to a voice I could not hear... I don't know, but I would not be surprised if this beautiful woman was attending to the faces of all the saints, of Mary, and the Lord himself as he prepared to take her to himself...
There’s a prayer that comes at the end of a Catholic funeral mass and it gives beautiful expression to this faith and hope of ours. I'll use Margaret as the name for the deceased here...
Trusting in God,
we have prayed together for Margaret
and now we come to the last farewell.
There is sadness in parting,
but we take comfort in the hope
that one day we shall see Margaret again
and enjoy her friendship.
Although we may leave here in sorrow,
the mercy of God
will gather us together again
in the joy of his kingdom.
Therefore let us console one another
in our faith in Christ Jesus.
That's good news! We shall indeed see and know and love one another in heaven! The mercy of God will gather us together again with those who have gone before us!
But we don’t even have to wait until heaven to have communion with those who have gone before us: with Mary, the mother of Jesus and of us all; and with our loved ones whom the Lord has taken to himself.
Each time we approach the altar, we have a taste and a sip of that eternal banquet which awaits us in the Lord’s kingdom and which, we hope and pray, those who have gone before us are already enjoying.
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