You are dust, and unto dust you shall return...
                                                                                       -- Genesis 3:19

                                 When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you...
                                   When you pray, ...go into your room and close the door...
                                   When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites...
                                                                                         -- Matthew 6

An unexpected death among primitives among whom I once lived, especially the death of a younger one, always had a reason. And the reason was always — "poison." "They poisoned him." And I'd say: "You sure? Maybe in old times. But today? Maybe more likely malaria, pneumonia." And they would look at you in sympathy, or even pity. The matter was not negotiable. It was too obvious. It was poison. And after several of such experiences it occurs to you that "poison" served as an adequate explanation for an implausible event. It satisfied them and gave them peace. They knew why he died. "He was poisoned."

When we hear that someone has died, we usually ask: And what did he die of? As if it mattered a whit. Rare disease or common, accident or old age, incompetent doctors or incompetent cooks, what's it matter, really? But we derive some comfort from the fact, and that gives us a hold on the mystery of death.

Linking death, suffering, disease, misfortune, with God's displeasure is perhaps back of it all. And if we can make it clear that a punitive God wasn't at work, and can name a culprit, then we escape a dreadful situation. For it's not rare to link misfortune and God's anger. Or for that matter, good fortune and God's good pleasure with us.

So, when a plane crashes, when ships collide, when hotels burn, when the shuttle doesn't launch, then we do the necessary thing: we appoint a commission, find out  what happened, why, who was responsible. And that will give us a hold on history.

Like the weather: we can't do anything about it, about tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes. But maybe we can predict them. And that keeps God at a distance.

Death always means God. And the question always is: Is He angry? Did He do it on purpose? And the suspicion always is: Yes, He is. And yes, He did. And so we try very hard to get something between that worry and ourselves. Something we can hang death on.

It doesn't work, of course. Naming the cause, knowing it, doesn't remove death. And today when we put off death so many years for so many, we don't know what to with all the old people. And yet death comes anyway. It sure does. And why does it come? Because God is angry, And why is He angry? Because of sin.

So, Jesus took His disciples to task on the error: the Galileans were no more guilty than any others. Nor the victims of the Siloam tower. You are all sinners.

Monks don't have many tragic deaths. Sometimes we do. Brother Michael was known to be a bit reckless and somewhat careless. He fell off a roof. But he died because he was a human being. All of whom die. Father Louis [Thomas Merton --ed.] was known to be somewhat inept with devices and with tools and with equipment. But he didn't die because of that. He died as a member of the sinful race.

So, if we're to deal with death it's not enough to deal with superficial circumstances. We must go much deeper. Like in healing a human of what ails him, we can sometimes help him, help her, by going back in years to past history, to childhood, to confront events from which stem so many of her aches, of his problems. And deal with those problems so long repressed and hidden, and hurting him or her so much. But sometimes even that's not enough. And so we must go all the way back to the womb. And there unravel the knots that have him all tied up.

So if you want to be healed wholly, wholly indeed, you go back to the original scene. And that's what we do at the table. Indeed it is the Eucharist of food and drink, a Divine meal, a common gathering at a common table, to share the common bread and the cup in love for Him and for one another. But there's more.

It's also sacrifice. It's not only table. It's altar. And the man standing there is a priest. And there is a Victim. And there is an immolation. Only after that, Communion.

And we're not watching something. We're doing something. We're going back to the primordial past, to the day we put Christ to death. And by that fact, learned to die. Death entered the world by sin. Ours too. The old legend is very neat: when they dug the hole for the Cross, they found the skull of Adam. Our history is all of a piece. The mystery we enter into is also the mystery of mercy. He has forgiven us. And the proof is in the eating and the drinking of His Body and Blood.

So, we don't ask of a man: what did he die of? He died of sin. Along with the Galileans and the men by the tower of Siloam. Along with Michael and Louis and absolutely everyone else. And because we do this today and every day, we don't fear death. Nor the God Who brings death. Nor the reason for it all. Here at the altar we face the issue and we live in reality.

And if we put Christ to death — and we do — that ought to end it: no need now to put myself to death, nor others. No need for violence against me, or you. No need to punish, to bring to heel, to take to task, to shape up and to bring into line this mess that is life because I hate it and everyone in it. No need for the war we love, fraternal, familial, national. We've done all that, seen all that. Deja vu. It is, rather, time to breathe fresh air and see new visions, and know a warm sun rising in the east. Because mercy has become the climate in which we live. Which is to say: we know what it means to repent: it means to accept mercy. Otherwise, we perish.  Amen.