PROPER 25, YEAR C

October 26, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Sirach 35:12-17

Psalm 84:1-6

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

 

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt … The parable in today’s Gospel contrasts two characters who occupied positions poles apart: a Pharisee and a tax collector.

 

The Pharisees have received somewhat bad press in the Christian Church down through the centuries. But this parable’s original hearers would have held them in high regard. Away from the religious establishment centered in the Temple of Jerusalem and its priesthood, the Pharisees constituted a popular movement in Israel’s towns and villages, dedicated to keeping the Jewish Law amid the mundane occupations and activities of everyday life. 

 

But this does not mean the Pharisees opposed the Temple system. On the contrary, like all good Jews, they made pilgrimages to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice and prayer whenever they could. Their attitude might be expressed in the lines of today’s Psalm: “How dear to me is your dwelling, Lord God of hosts; my heart has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord … Happy the people … whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way … They will climb from height to height, and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.”

 

So, in today’s Gospel, a Pharisee goes up to the Temple to pray. His prayer mentions two practices characteristic of the Pharisees’ spirituality: fasting twice a week and giving a tenth of all his income, also known as tithing. On first hearing this parable, the original audience would immediately have identified the Pharisee as the story’s good guy.

 

And we shouldn’t be too quick to assume otherwise. The Pharisee’s attitude embodies the verse in today’s Old Testament reading from Sirach: “Give to the Most High as he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford.” And if we’re tempted to condemn him for being boastful, well, he’s no more boastful than Saint Paul, who writes in today’s Epistle: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

If our Lord’s original audience regarded the Pharisee as upright and virtuous, they certainly assumed precisely the opposite of the tax collector. In first-century Palestine, tax collectors were condemned as collaborators with the Roman occupiers. Moreover, they were not government employees but independent contractors. The Romans awarded the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder, who would then have to pay for the contract up front. Tax collectors thus had an enormous incentive to recoup their investment by fraud and extortion. Hence, they were reviled as notorious sinners, beyond the pale of respectable society, much as we regard drug traffickers or pimps today.

 

Now, when I’ve preached on this parable in the past, I’ve followed conventional New Testament scholarship in describing the ending as a “great reversal.” The tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, goes down to his house justified—that is, having found favor with God. Such an outcome would have turned all the hearers’ expectations and assumptions upside down in a shocking and scandalous way. How could a tax collector, rather than a Pharisee, be the one who gains God’s vindication?

 

However, the Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine proposes a surprisingly different interpretation. She points out that in the final sentence, the Greek word para, here translated “instead of” or “rather than,” might better be rendered “alongside” or “together with.” In that case, the tax collector went down to his house justified, as well as the Pharisee. Contrary to the traditional reading, the Pharisee is not condemned. But the real shock of the parable is that neither is the tax collector. They both return home having found favor with God.

 

The great temptation in this parable for some Christian readers—especially those coming from a more Reformed or Protestant tradition—is to conclude that Jesus is condemning such practices as fasting and tithing, which they identify as “works righteousness.” That is the very last interpretation that I want to encourage, especially at the time of our Stewardship Program! Jesus himself fasted and prayed, and taught his followers to do the same. Moreover, he also called his disciples to give away not merely a tenth of their income, but all their possessions. The parable is not against fasting and tithing per se, but against trusting in oneself that one is righteous and despising others.

 

The Pharisee’s problem lies not in his spiritual practices, which are entirely good and praiseworthy. Contrary to centuries of antisemitic interpretation of this parable, there’s nothing self-righteous or hypocritical in his attitude. Thanking God for his ability to lead this life, the Pharisee implicitly acknowledges that his righteousness comes from God and not from himself. But his one blind spot, the one point where he needs to be humbled to be exalted, lies in his contempt for others: “I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector.” 

 

Conversely, the tax collector’s one virtue is that he knows better than to trust in himself. He’s such a sinner that he can do nothing to merit God’s forgiveness. God alone can take away his guilt. And so he pleads, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

 

At this point, Amy-Jill Levine makes a remarkable suggestion. The tax collector returns home forgiven precisely on account of the Pharisee’s righteousness. What the Pharisee fails to recognize is that his spiritual achievements are not solely for his own benefit. They generate a surplus of merit, in which even the tax collector can share. So the Pharisee and the tax collector both return home, blessed by God.

 

If this interpretation is accurate, then the parable expresses the biblical theology of the faithful remnant, in which the fidelity of a few obtains the salvation of the many. In today’s Epistle, Saint Paul describes his own faithfulness as not only for his own benefit but also for those for whom he labors: “From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but to all who have longed for his appearing.” The essence of the Christian Gospel is the good news that the fidelity and obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, suffices to obtain God’s forgiveness for a fallen and sinful world.

 

This parable’s point, then, is not that there’s anything wrong with the traditional spiritual disciplines. Fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and works of mercy are indispensable to growing in the knowledge and love of God, and becoming more and more the people God has created us to be, to his glory. 

 

The one temptation we need to beware of, however, is that of looking down on others. In an era of declining church attendance and religious observance, our calling is to be a faithful remnant. We come here to offer our worship and prayer, our faithfulness and obedience, precisely on behalf of those who aren’t here, so that, in ways unknown to us, they also may find favor with God.

 

ANNUAL WALSINGHAM PILGRIMAGE

SOCIETY OF MARY ANNUAL MASS

Grace Church, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Saturday, October 18, 2025

 

 

Bishop Gunter, Bishop Burgess, reverend colleagues, fellow pilgrims: It is good to be here! On behalf of everyone who made the journey to this place today, I want to thank the people of Grace Church for their warm welcome and generous hospitality. On behalf of the Society of Mary, I especially want to thank Fr. Bulson for his kind invitation to combine our Annual Mass with the Annual Walsingham Pilgrimage this year.

 

The connection between the Society of Mary and the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is long and deep. In the 1920s, the League of Our Lady—one of the Society of Mary’s two precursor societies—organized the first Anglican pilgrimages to Walsingham. Fr. William Elwell, the rector of this parish who started the Walsingham pilgrimages here in 1951, became a founding member of the Society of Mary American Region Council eleven years later, in 1962. Our website lists the “American Walsingham Proto-Shrine” as one of our two Wards here in Wisconsin (the other being Our Lady of Glastonbury at Nashotah House).

Between the Society of Mary and the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham, there is a considerable overlap of membership, as well as friendly and cooperative relations. (I’m a member of both.) The only real distinction is that the Society of Mary is not associated with any particular shrine or place of pilgrimage, but promotes all legitimate forms of devotion to Our Lady equally. If anyone here would like to learn more about the Society of Mary, I’d be delighted to speak with you at the luncheon following this Mass.

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

This past summer, my wife and I participated in a pilgrimage to Turkey, organized by The Living Church magazine, to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. One of the trip’s highlights was Hagia Sophia, the stunning basilica built in the 6th century by Emperor Justinian in what was then Constantinople, today Istanbul. For nine centuries, Hagia Sophia was the largest church in Christendom. Although the Ottoman Turks converted it into a mosque in 1453, they inadvertently preserved some of its ancient Byzantine mosaics by covering them over with plaster. Today, visitors can see these exquisite mosaics, which were uncovered and restored in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For many years, I had wanted to view them in person, and on this pilgrimage, I finally had the opportunity.

 

Hagia Sophia’s mosaics include three iconographic depictions of the Virgin and Child. In one, she is standing, while in the other two, she sits on a throne, her feet resting on a pedestal. In all three, she faces the viewer, holding the Christ Child, who also faces the viewer, holding a scroll in his left hand and blessing with his right.

 

As I looked at these mosaics, a connection with the church’s dedication suddenly occurred to me. Hagia Sophia means “holy wisdom.” Dating from the ninth and tenth centuries, these mosaics of the enthroned Virgin and Child model a style that later became known in the West as the Throne or Seat of Wisdom—in Latin, Sedes Sapientiae.

 

Over the next two centuries, Throne of Wisdom statues became increasingly common in the Romanesque and Gothic art of Western Europe. And—perhaps you see where I’m going with this—the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham fits right into their pattern. Today, then, I’m going to reflect briefly on Our Lady of Walsingham in relation to Hagia Sophia—holy wisdom.

 

Votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the old Roman Missal often began with a reading from the eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs. This passage and others like it portray Wisdom as a woman, Lady Wisdom, who recalls that she was with God from the beginning, even before the world's creation. “When he established the heavens, I was there … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always …”

 

Although the Roman Missal implies an identification of Lady Wisdom with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Christian tradition, especially in the East, has generally recognized her as a feminine personification of the divine Word or Logos, God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Many New Testament scholars maintain that at the beginning of the Fourth Gospel, Saint John drew on this Old Testament Wisdom tradition to describe the Logos, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Saint Paul similarly refers to Christ in his First Letter to the Corinthians as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

 

Against this background, the visual significance of the Seat of Wisdom statues, including Our Lady of Walsingham, is clear. Sitting on her throne, Mary herself becomes a throne for the divine Wisdom Incarnate sitting on her lap. 

 

But perhaps there’s more going on here. Mary is emphatically not divine but a creature—albeit the highest of God’s creatures, higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim. Through her humility, obedience, and faithfulness, she shows us what human life perfected by divine Wisdom looks like. In this way, she becomes Wisdom’s created personification and fulfillment. Thus, the statues may depict her not only as the Throne of Wisdom but also as Wisdom enthroned. A former rector of this parish has been quoted as describing Our Lady of Walsingham as “Holy Wisdom presenting the divine Logos to the world.”

 

The medieval Western Seat of Wisdom statues introduced two features absent from the earlier Byzantine mosaics: a crown and a scepter. With Our Lady of Walsingham, the scepter has become a flowering lily. And so, we gain a glimpse into eternity. All of Mary’s earlier appearances in the New Testament—the joyful Virgin at the Annunciation, the Mother of Sorrows at the foot of the Cross, and the Mother of the Church in the Upper Room with the disciples—are taken up and brought to completion in this final image of Mary, the Mother of God, now crowned Queen of Heaven.

 

In 1946, the Boston poet Robert Lowell included a section entitled “Our Lady of Walsingham” in his poem The Quaker Graveyard at Nantucket. He dedicated the poem to his cousin, lost at sea during World War II. While much of the poem is filled with menacing images of maritime death, full of allusions to Moby Dick and other literary sources, the Walsingham section provides a brief respite, describing a weary pilgrim’s final approach to the shrine through an idyllic rural landscape.

 

There once the penitents took off their shoes

And then walked barefoot the remaining mile;

And the small trees, a stream and hedgerows file

Slowly along the munching English lane,

Like cows to the old shrine, until you lose

Track of your dragging pain.

The stream flows down under the druid tree,

Shiloah’s whirlpools gurgle and make glad

The castle of God. Sailor, you were glad

And whistled Sion by that stream …

 

Surprisingly, Lowell never visited Walsingham, but anyone who’s ever walked the Holy Mile between the village and the Slipper Chapel knows exactly what he’s talking about. Finally, the pilgrim sailor—whom we now recognize as Lowell’s dead cousin—enters the shrine and gazes upon Our Lady. “This face,” Lowell writes,

 

Expressionless, expresses God: it goes

Past castled Sion. She knows what God knows,

Not Calvary’s Cross nor crib at Bethlehem

Now, and the world shall come to Walsingham.

 

The power of these lines lies in their depiction of Our Lady’s contemplation of the divine mysteries in heaven. She knows what God knows. Holy Wisdom. The promise of these lines is that, in the end, we also shall arrive where she is and know what she knows. Whether in Istanbul, Norfolk, or Sheboygan, our pilgrimage destination becomes a figure of our eternal goal. And the world shall come to Walsingham.

 

PROPER 23, YEAR C

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

Psalm 111

Luke 17:11-19

 

Saying “thank you” lubricates the wheels of social interaction. When a stranger performs some courteous gesture, such as holding open a door, we instinctively acknowledge their kindness with a smile and a “thank you.” In traffic, when another driver yields the right of way to let us make a difficult left turn, we acknowledge them with a friendly wave of the hand.

 

Even more so, in our workplaces, homes, and indeed churches, when people make an extra effort to perform some helpful task, if we’re smart, we remember to say, “thank you.” We do so because we care about their feelings and want them to know that their efforts are valued and appreciated, not taken for granted.

 

One of the pitfalls of church life is that those who feel they haven’t been thanked appropriately can grow resentful and bitter. Ideally, we shouldn’t need such recognition because we offer our gifts of time and talent to God with no thought of receiving anything back in return. However, not everyone has reached that level of spiritual maturity. So, saying “thank you” to the right people at the right times is not only courteous and considerate but also wise and prudent.

 

Today’s Gospel reading, however, takes us deeper into the true meaning and significance of thanksgiving. In our relationship with God, saying “thank you” is far more than just a social convention. We can even say that gratitude to God is at the heart of all authentic Christian spirituality.

 

As Jesus enters a village, ten lepers call out to him.  They’re standing far off because, according to the Law, they must remain outside the towns and villages where people dwell.  So, from a distance, they cry out, "Jesus, master, have mercy on us."  Jesus simply answers, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."  Only a priest of the Temple in Jerusalem can pronounce a leper clean of the disease. (Notice also, as in the Old Testament reading where the Prophet Elisha bids Naaman the leper bathe seven times in the River Jordan, it’s a request that involves minimal hands-on interaction with the person giving the instruction.)

 

The text says, “And as they went, they were made clean.” That wording implies that even though they hadn’t been healed yet, they had the faith and trust to begin the journey. Their faith is immediately rewarded. In the blinking of an eye, the scabs, scales, running sores, and painful itching are gone.  At the Jerusalem Temple, they can be certified as leprosy-free. Then they’ll be able to rejoin the community life from which they’ve been ostracized and excluded. So off they go.

 

All, that is, except one.  He's a Samaritan.  Unlike the other nine, he wouldn’t be going to Jerusalem in any case, but, if anywhere, to the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. Still, like Naaman returning to Elisha after his cleansing from leprosy so many centuries before, his priority is to return and express his gratitude to Jesus. He runs into the village.  Shouting God’s praises, he throws himself at Jesus’ feet, gasping out exclamations of thanksgiving. His attitude can be summed up in the opening words of Psalm 111: “Hallelujah, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation.”

 

When the other nine lepers present themselves before the priests outside the Temple, they’ll sacrifice doves and lambs as part of the ritual of being pronounced clean. But here in a dusty street in a remote village far from Jerusalem, the Samaritan leper is engaging in a new form of worship.  Instead of doves and lambs, he’s offering a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

 

The Holy Eucharist is similarly a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.  The word "Eucharist" comes from the Greek verb meaning “to give thanks," the very same verb that occurs in the Greek text of today's Gospel, where it says that the Samaritan "thanked" Jesus.

 

So, this Samaritan leper teaches us much about the true nature of Christian worship.  He falls down at Jesus’ feet to offer praise and thanks for all that God has done for him. We come here to offer praise and thanks for all that God has done for us. The point is not that God will be miffed at us, like an entitled parishioner, if we don’t thank him properly. Instead, we’re the ones who need a basic disposition of gratitude to grow into a right relationship with God. It’s not that God needs to be thanked, but that we need to be thankful.

 

Saying “thank you” to God transcends all social conventions and niceties because it expresses a basic acknowledgment that God is God and we are not—so that everything we have is sheer gift, unmerited and undeserved. From the moment of conception, we owe our very existence to God’s goodness and generosity. Sometimes it helps to remember that none of us had to be here. God could just as easily have left us uncreated, in which case we wouldn’t be here. But he did create us, we do exist, and that’s cause for thanksgiving right there.

 

Regularly thanking God reminds us that, despite everything that’s wrong with this world, God’s creation remains fundamentally good. Life in this world is worth living, not only on its own merits but also because it contains the promise of eternal life. And just as God is the good creator of a good creation, so he’s ultimately the redeemer and healer of all that’s gone wrong with that creation, as the ten lepers in today’s Gospel can testify firsthand.

 

One way to cultivate the virtue of gratitude is through the proverbial discipline of counting our blessings. Then we realize how much we have to be thankful for. We acknowledge our status as creatures and God’s status as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. And by continually thanking God, we open ourselves up to a new and ever-deepening relationship with Him.

 

In our New Revised Standard Version translation, Jesus says to the Samaritan leper, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."  But an equally accurate translation of Luke’s Greek would be, "Rise, go your way, your faith has saved you."

 

Today's Gospel shows us that we have a choice. The nine lepers forget about Jesus as soon as he answers their prayer, and they hasten to advance their own lives and agendas. By contrast, the Samaritan leper returns to offer thanks and praise to the Lord without seeking any personal advantage. Of the ten, he models the truly Christian posture of thanksgiving—for which, again, the Greek word is Eucharist. As we learn to adopt that disposition of gratitude, then at the conclusion of this and every Eucharist, we can hear our Lord saying the words, "Rise, go your way, your faith has saved you."

 

PATRICIA ELAINE HARRISON

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R.I.

Friday, October 10, 2025

 

As I think about Pat Harrison, the phrase that comes into my mind is “a life well spent.” This phrase is part of a saying attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”

 

Pat’s life was indeed well spent—a life spent in the service of her fellow human beings. After earning two degrees at the University of Rhode Island, Pat devoted 30 years to specialized lab work in hematology at Rhode Island Hospital. Her obituary notes that “Known for her strong spirit and sharp mind, she combined her scientific knowledge with her pastoral heart, often ministering to patients and their families during their most difficult times.”

 

This instinctive care for patients and their families gave Pat the growing sense that she was called to something more. When she was a little girl, she wanted to be a preacher. Back then, she was told, No, women couldn’t do that. But this hankering kept returning. And so, later in life, she embarked upon a second vocation as an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church. To prepare for ordination, she took courses and earned her Master of Divinity degree at Andover Newton Theological School.

 

She told me that early in her theological studies, she was tempted to question and doubt her calling. Her drive from Rhode Island up I-95 to Newton Centre, which she made several times a week to attend classes after work, was arduous. One day, when she was feeling particularly discouraged, she asked God to give her a sign that this was really what he wanted her to do. Then, on the drive, she found herself driving behind a truck. On it were written the words “Guaranteed Overnight Delivery,” with the first letter of each word highlighted: G-O-D. God. Immediately, she recognized with a laugh that this was precisely the sign she’d asked for. That put an end to any doubts about her vocation. That’s the kind of Christian she was—able to discern God present and speaking to her even in the traffic on the Interstate. And not without a sense of humor.

 

After her ordination at the First Baptist Church in America, she served as a minister in churches in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including People’s Baptist in Cranston, First Baptist in Attleboro, and the Harbor Church on Block Island.

 

Then, about 15 years ago, Pat found a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. Together with her old friend and sometime music teacher, Mary Jane Lide, she attended Saint John’s, Barrington, for a year or so, and then moved here and settled in what was then Saint Matthew’s Church. On December 14, 2014, our Bishop, Nicholas Knisely, confirmed her with the laying on of hands during his episcopal visitation. And so, she officially became an Episcopalian.

 

It was clear to me, however, that this move was in no sense a repudiation of her Baptist heritage and ministry, which remained precious to her and was indeed formative of her spirituality. However, she told me that she was drawn to the liturgical and sacramental aspects of the Anglican tradition. So her Confirmation was really a natural progression in the spiritual journey she’d been on all along. 

 

You may have noticed that the hymns we chose for today’s service are the kind commonly found in both the Baptist and Episcopal musical traditions. I hope Pat approves. She was a great singer.

 

About seven or eight years ago, Pat became increasingly housebound on account of her mounting health problems. When she could no longer attend church, however, the Church came to her. Both our clergy and our Lay Eucharistic Ministers brought her Communion. And once we started live-streaming our services during the pandemic, she started watching them faithfully.

 

And so, now Pat continues her journey. As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death. We gather here today to give thanks for the gift of Pat’s life and ministry. We pray for the repose of her soul, that God will bring her to the perfection of Christ’s new creation. And we trust that after she has slept the sleep of death, God will raise her, on the Last Day, to eternal life in the company of the angels and saints.

NORMA LOUISE BROWN

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R.I.

Monday, October 6, 2025

 

 

Saturday was Saint Francis’ Day. At 11 am, we held a Blessing of the Animals outside in the parking lot. Although only a few people attended with their pets, it felt good to gather there in honor of the Poor One of Assisi. That’s his statue back there in the corner. 

 

Two of the hymns we chose for today’s Requiem for Norma Brown are attributed to Saint Francis: “All creatures of our God and King,” an English paraphrase of Francis’ Canticle of the Sun; and after Communion, the so-called Prayer of Saint Francis, “Make me a Channel of your Peace.” Norma requested this one at her funeral. Francis did not actually write the text, which dates back only to 1912, but it was written with the intention of expressing the Franciscan ethos, which I think it does very well indeed.

 

Why am I talking about Saint Francis? Because, in many ways, Norma Brown’s life embodied the spirit of Saint Francis. Like Francis, she loved animals. She loved the outdoors: hiking in the mountains or walking on the beach. Norma was one of those people who encounter God in the beauty of creation.

 

And like Francis, Norma cared deeply about other people. She had a difficult childhood with a rough home life. But she did not grow up to be bitter or angry. Instead, she was deeply compassionate, sociable, and a friend to everybody. She was not a counselor, therapist, or social worker, but she had an intuitive ability to discern and diagnose other people’s problems, and say a kind word to help lighten their load.

 

My own first encounter with Norma took place a few weeks after I arrived here at Saints Matthew and Mark. About five minutes before the Sunday service began, she came into my office and informed me that another parishioner, a friend of hers, was in Miriam Hospital. That’s the kind of person Norma was: always reaching out in concern for others. And because she spoke to me, I was able to make the first of several visits to her friend that very afternoon.

 

One way in which Norma perhaps did not resemble Saint Francis was in her love for books. (Francis thought books were a temptation to pride and tried unsuccessfully to prevent his friars from keeping or owning books.) But Norma had hundreds of books and loved to read them. She was well-educated, having attended Michigan State University and having earned two master’s degrees, one in Education and one in Music. She regularly attended book signings at some of our local bookstores to hear the authors speak and get their autographs on her copies of their books. 

 

The more I think about my recollections of Norma, the more the word that springs into my mind is “Joy.” She radiated joy. I could always sense it as she approached the lectern to read one of the lessons in the Sunday morning Eucharist.

 

Saint Francis taught that perfect joy comes from embracing God’s will for one’s life in fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. And perhaps that was the key to the joy that Norma shone forth in her life. 

 

Joy in this life is a foretaste of heaven. Now Norma continues her journey into the fullness of God’s glory. So, we give thanks for the many gifts she shared with us during her life in this world. And we pray for her immortal soul, that God, having forgiven her and purged away her sins, will bring her to perfection in the company of the saints in light. 

 

We also call to mind the shortness and uncertainty of our own lives, praying that God will bring us to our final destination, where we will be reunited with Norma, and all those whom we love but see no longer.