When all is over, from your pride will remain a handful of bare bones on a damp grave bottom.
You've dressed in beautiful clothes; from above, God sees you naked.
You stride heavily, with your head tilted back; God knows you are barefoot.
When all ends here, from the haughtiness of your head tilted back, only a sigh will remain.
In 1989, the last Empress of Austria, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, was interred. Her bronze coffin reached the crypt door, and the marshal of ceremonies knocked with his staff for it to be opened.
The Capuchin monks (the beggars of the Franciscan order, the simplest and most barefoot among the barefoot) asked who wished to enter. A long enumeration of Empress Zita's imperial, royal, and ducal titles followed. From behind the doors, first a black silence. Then a response cold as death.
We do not know her!
Only on the third attempt did the imperial marshal utter the truth. The ultimate truth:
Zita. A mortal and sinful human!
Then let her enter, whispered the beggars of the Barefoot One.
Think about it. However long the sermon at your funeral may be, however many bishops may cense you, and however many silvered and gilded trinkets you may have on your ceremonial pillow, this is what you are. This is what I am. This is what we all are, and by this, the Lord recognizes us.
Mortal and sinful humans.
Fr. Crin-Triandafil Theodorescu