All Souls Day

I teared (teered, not tared) up at Mass today. It was in the chapel, maybe 15 people; very intimate and quiet. The priest was an old Italian with a thick accent but a lovely voice that sounds like he's reading Dante whenever he talks. He kept telling us about storing up our treasure in heaven. Over and over, saying that our "law diplomas" won't mean anything in heaven and what are we going to do with all the things we work so hard for here when we die? God wants us to do great things yet we are always playing foolish little games, then he'd echo softly, "foolish little games." It would maybe have sounded trite were it not for the accent or the grandfatherly love in his look, but whatever it was, it was wonderful to hear and I thought about how simple it is and how much I wished everyone on Earth would just take a break from making everything so complicated and hateful just to try out the whole storing up a treasure in heaven thing. And it sounds obvious and unneccessary to even say to adults, but it's not less true for all that. Why do people resist happiness? And don't tell me they don't: I've seen them; they do.