Yes, It's the Glory Train!

November 5, 2006

Dear Friend,

It’s a breezy and bright Thursday afternoon (November 2nd) and outside my window the trees are already bear. The Cardinal bushes that line the driveway are ablaze in red. It’s the Feast of All Souls.

One of the great spirituals created by African Americans is one that compared death to a train. The same train that called my father and mother and took them is at the station waiting for me. The train only makes one-way trips to the Land of Glory. Yes, it’s the Glory Train! The composer of the hymn did not try to describe the destination in detail and neither did St. Paul.

While there is no disagreement of St. Paul with the hymn on the certainty of death, he tells his people that they shouldn’t try to imagine what life after death would be like. He himself longed to be dissolved and be with Christ. He also called death the “last enemy to be destroyed.

It’s been said that the road to death is often harder than death itself and St. Paul did not recommend avoiding anxiety by closing the door against any thought of that last enemy.

During this month of November we Catholics reconsider these thoughts as we remember our beloved dead. Such prayers are appropriate when we look at Iraq and the Sudan. The dead these days wear the face of the young.

Let us commend all those who have boarded that train to Glory to the mercy of God

Fondly,
Father Nick Amato