Karl Rahner - God of the living (Part 4/4)

0 silent God, God of the silent dead, living God of the living, who call to me through silence, 0 God of those who are silently summoning me to enter into Your Life, never let me forget my dead, my living. May my love and faithfulness to them be a pledge of my belief in You, the God of eternal life.

Let me not be deaf to the call of their silence, which is the surest and sincerest word of their love. May this word of theirs continue to accompany me, even after they have taken leave of me to enter into You, for thus their love comes all the closer to me. 0 my soul, never forget your dead, for they live. And the life they live, now unveiled in eternal light, is your own fife, which will one day be revealed also in you.

O God of the living, may Your living not forget me, as I still walk in the valley of death. You have granted them everything, even Yourself; grant them this too, that their silence may become the most eloquent word of their love for me. May it lead me home to the Kingdom they now possess, to the fife and light they now enjoy.

My waning life is becoming more and more a life with the dead. I live more and more with those who have gone before me into the dark night where no man can work. By Your life giving grace, 0 Lord, let it become ever more a life of faith in Your light, shining now dimly in this earthly night. Let me live with the living who have preceded me in the sign of faith, who have gone before me into the bright day of eternal life, when no man need work, because You Yourself are this day, the Fullness of all Reality, the God of the Living.

When I pray, "Grant them eternal rest, 0 Lord, and let Thy perpetual light shine upon them," let my words be only the echo of the prayer of love that they themselves are speaking for me in the silence of eternity: "0 Lord, grant unto him, whom we love in Your Love now as never before, grant unto him after his life's struggle Your eternal rest, and let Your perpetual light shine also upon him, as it does upon us."

0 my soul, never forget the dead. 0 God of all the living, do not forget me, the dead one, but come one day to be my life, as You are theirs.

Karl Rahner, S.J.
Encounters with Silence