When I was in the Philippines for a while, I lived in an ordinary parish in Metro Manila. I was the fourth in presbytery aside from the Parish Priest and two associate priests. Since I didn't know Tagalog, the national language, my pastoral involvement was very limited.
When someone dies there, the body is brought to the funeral homes. The funeral takes place after seven or nine days. The family stays with the embalmed body for those days. Mostly they ate and slept there. In the meantime, relatives and friends would visit and sometimes stayed with the family according to the intensity of relationship. In the meantime, priests are often arranged to celebrate Mass. Due to the language barrier, usually I was not assigned to such Masses. Funeral homes are of different grades. Once, in an ordinary funeral home, a family wanted Mass to be celebrated for all 7 days. My companion priests had other engagements. Since there was no other priest available, the family had to agree to the condition that there would be only English Masses. So Isabel, the parish secretary assigned me to it. Seven days of Mass for the same person to be celebrated with the same family people! That was challenging. What would I preach as sermon on each day- I wondered. I decided to talk about small topics. The inevitability of death, the purpose of life, the value of memories, the lesson from the butterfly, and so on. Usually I am not a storyteller. However, one of those days I made up a story and presented it. I still think that I had never read or heard that story before.
And I have never told that story anywhere else.
But, last year or so I got it forwarded from someone- the same story - in English. When I Googled, I realized that many people have used that story. One of my present priest companions used the same story last Sunday in his homily. That's when I realized that I had not shared it here.
The story goes like this:
A mother had conceived twins. The two babies had occasional chats. The first baby asked the other once: “Do you believe in life after birth?”
The second baby replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after birth. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what is going to be.”
“Nonsense,” said the first. “Life after birth. What would that life be?”
“I don’t know, but there will be more light I believe there than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat through our mouths.”
The skeptic baby laughed. “That's absurd! Walking is impossible. Eat with our mouths?! Ridiculous. This umbilical cord supplies us food and nutrition. Life after birth is simply impossible. When we are born, the umbilical cord will be cut. Then we die.”
The second baby argued still. “I think there will be something and maybe it’s going to be different than it is here.”
The first one said: “No one has ever come back from that world you are talking about. Birth is the end of life, and after-birth there is nothing but darkness. We cease to be.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the twin, “but certainly we will see our mother and she will shower her love on us.”
“Mother?!” The first baby simpered. “You believe in mother? Where is she now?”
The second baby calmly tried to explain. “She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be us and the place we are in.”
“Sill. I don’t see her. Have you? It’s only logical that she doesn’t exist.”
To which the other replied, “Sometimes if you remain silent you can hear her, you can feel her. I believe there is a reality after birth, and we are here to prepare ourselves for that, when it comes!”
