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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent

March 1, 2024

Invitatory

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Reading: from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

“Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod,” said Nick miserably. “But very few wizards choose that path.”

“Why not?” said Harry. “Anyway — it doesn’t matter — Sirius won’t care if it’s unusual, he’ll come back, I know he will!”

And so strong was his belief that Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly white and transparent but beaming, walking through it toward him.

“He will not come back,” repeated Nick quietly. “He will have . . . gone on.”

“What d’you mean, ‘gone on’?” said Harry quickly. “Gone on where? Listen — what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn’t everyone come back? Why isn’t this place full of ghosts? Why — ?”

“I cannot answer,” said Nick.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” said Harry exasperatedly. “Who can answer better than you?”

“I was afraid of death,” said Nick. “I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn’t to have . . . Well, that is neither here nor there. . . . In fact, I am neither here nor there. . . .” He gave a small sad chuckle. “I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead.”

Meditation - Winnie Smith

For me, the Harry Potter series only gets better with time. What once was simply an amazing story with gripping characters and swiftly moving narrative, is now a complex tale of conflict between two huge forces in our lives: the power of love and the power of fear. The books are heavily influenced by Christianity. There are explicit and implicit references to aspects of our faith, such as in the conversation quoted above.

In this scene, Harry is reeling from the death of his closest confidant and pseudo-family member, and he confronts Nearly Headless Nick, one of the many ghosts that float through the hallways of his school. Harry is desperate to hear that his beloved godfather will return to him in this form and their relationship will carry on. But to his dismay, Nick tells him no, Sirius will not. He will not “walk palely where [his] living [self] once trod.” Nick goes on: “I was afraid of death…I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead.” Walking palely through a feeble imitation of life. When I read this a few nights ago, I was gutted by these lines. What a miserable way to live out one’s eternity. Nick laughs that as a ghost he is “neither here nor there,” and I think that idea is how many of our conceptions of the afterlife would play out if they were true. They would be weak attempts at the full lives we once lived. They would be completely unfulfilling because we would be stuck in a partial earthly existence and a partial heavenly one. Sounds pretty grim.

Nick blames his current existence on his fear of death. He was too afraid to let go and go into the unknown, so now he’s stuck in - well, limbo.

The power of our Christian hope is that while our ultimate future is completely unknowable, we believe that it will be joyful. It will be a new existence, and that fact is scary. But it will bring us union with God and all the people of God, and even more importantly, with an immeasurable outpouring of love. We are assured that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. My hope - and faith - tells me that that love will feel like a kind of peace we can only glimpse in this mortal life. It takes a radical - sometimes absurd - amount of faith to believe that, but it offers us a radical sense of freedom and hope when looking forward to it. True, abiding love is what God gives us, and it is enough to sustain us through our fears of death. Love is what ultimately allows Harry Potter to live, and I think the same goes for us. God’s love for us is there, from our creation to the preservation of our lives to the place and time after death, where we will know God more fully. I won’t wish away this life, because it is pretty incredible, but I look forward, too, to whatever comes next.

A Prayer for the Absent

O God, whose fatherly care reaches to the uttermost parts of the earth: We humbly beseech you graciously to behold and bless those whom we love, now absent from us. Defend them from all dangers of soul and body; and grant that both they and we, drawing nearer to you, may be bound together by your love in the communion of your Holy Spirit, and in the fellowship of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.