A Christian Outlook on Death

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

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

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

St. Paul says to the Thessalonians, “For you yourself know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2).

Our Lord Himself has said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11: 25-26).

St. Paul to the Ephesians says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of the time” (Eph. 5:15-16).

A lot of these statements in Scripture can remind us not to be blind to our final moment on earth.

The Church in some ways encourages us to prepare for death on a daily basis. Our Lord has said that His coming in glory will take people unawares.

“For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Luke 17:24). Our Lord tells us that nothing can block His second coming at the end of time.

The disciples had a natural curiosity about when and where this would happen. “Where, Lord?” they asked Him. “Where the body is,” He replied, “there the eagles will be gathered” (Luke 17:37).

Our Lord teaches us that everyone will be drawn to the Son of God at the end of time just as eagles converge on their prey.

The same can be said about each person's moment of death.

St. Paul warns those Christians of Thessalonica that He will come “like a thief in the night.” It is one more call to vigilance.

We cannot be blind to our final moment on earth, the day of the Lord, when we will meet God face to face. St. Augustine has written that the Lord keeps the circumstances of His coming hidden so that we might always be on the alert (cf. St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 120).

In modern culture, in certain environments, it's not easy to speak about death and dying. In a materialistic culture, death is taboo because it suggests the end of everything.

It's easy for people to forget the spiritual nature of man, that every person has a soul and that soul is immortal. It has an eternal destiny. It's one of the most important truths of our faith, with enormous consequences.

But in a materialistic culture, the very mention of the subject of death can be regarded by some as a sign of bad taste. But it's the certainty of death that illuminates our life.

The Church invites us to meditate frequently on the inevitability of our death so that we won't be taken by surprise when it comes.

Pagan culture would have us live as though death were a distant mirage, something that only affects other people.

Regrettably, many who consider themselves good Christians can be unduly influenced by such a seductive approach to life. They're led astray because they fail to come to terms with the real meaning of death.

Rather than see death as a friend, or even as a sister, as St. Josemaría says in The Way, Points 735 and 739, they view it as an enormous catastrophe, as something that will undermine all their worldly hopes and accomplishments.

I remember accompanying an elderly lady in another country once, at the moment of her death.

I was rather impressed by some of her final words. She said, ‘If I had known death was so beautiful, I would have tried to die a long time ago.’ She was a very holy woman and very well prepared for her death.

This earthbound approach explains why death has to be put in the closet, as it were. It's too uncomfortable a subject to deal with. Instead of looking upon death as the key to the fullness of joy, the tendency is to see it as the end of the road, the checkout counter on what is for them a kind of terrestrial shopping spree.

These misguided people have lost sight of the fact that every person is in possession of an eternal soul. In The Way, Point 744, St Josemaría says, “Death is nothing more than a change of lodging.”

The liturgy often reminds us of that truth. In the Preface for the Dead, it says, “Life is changed, not taken away.”

Life changes. It's not something we're deprived of.

Christians believe that death represents the end of an earthly pilgrimage. Believers prepare for death on a daily basis.

It's through the sanctification of ordinary realities that we will win heaven as an eternal reward and the Christian who behaves accordingly will not be alarmed by death's arrival.

That person will have been patiently readying themselves for this definitive encounter with the Lord. In the words of St Cyprian, “Death is a stepping up into eternity after we have run in this earthly race” (St. Cyprian, Treatise on Mortality).

In the Furrow, Point 891, St. Josemaría says: “If at any time you feel uneasy at the thought of our sister death, because you see yourself to be such a poor creature, take heart. Heaven awaits us and consider: what will it be like when all the infinite beauty and greatness, and happiness and love of God will be poured into the poor vessel of clay that the human being is, to satisfy it eternally with the freshness of an ever new joy?”

Death acquires a new meaning with the death and resurrection of Christ.

The Book of Wisdom says, “God did not make death, and He does not delight in the death of the living” (Wis. 1:13). There was no such thing as death with all its pain and suffering, before our first parents committed original sin. Death is a consequence of sin.

Man had been given the gift of immortality in the Garden of Paradise. But when our first parents committed that sin, they lost that gift. They lost that gift! St. Paul says, “By the sin of one man, death entered the world” (Rom. 5:12).

The rebellion of our first parents led to the loss of that preternatural gift. By his disobedience, Adam lost his friendship with God and that gift of immortal life.

Since that time, our passage to the house of the Father, our final resting place, takes us to this fateful gateway—the moment when we “depart out of this world to the Father” as quoted in St. John (John 13:1).

St. Paul says Jesus Christ “abolished death and brought life” (2 Tim. 1:10). He removed the essential evil from death and gave it a new meaning, making death into a stepping stone to Life.

His victory is shared by all who believe in Him and who participate in His Life. Our Lord has told us, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11: 25-26). Our Lord's words can fill us with hope, a hope that does not disappoint.

Death is the enemy of the natural life of man. Christ has converted it into our friend and sister. Though the human person suffers defeat at the hands of this foe, he or she can in the end be triumphant thanks to Christ's immortal sacrifice.

For a materialistic society in which pleasure and comfort reign supreme, death and even life itself are devoid of lasting value. Those who adopt a pagan lifestyle behave as if suffering, failure, and death were curses to be avoided at any cost.

Such people act as if Christ never achieved redemption.

The Psalmist says in his prayer to God: “Those who hate the righteous will be condemned” (Ps. 34:21). But “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps. 116:15).

From her earliest days, the Church has celebrated the anniversaries of the death by martyrdom of her saints. The Church likes to say that these are the dies natalis, the birthdays to that new Life which entails joy without end.

St. John tells us in the Book of Revelation, “I heard a voice from heaven saying: ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” (Rev. 14:13).

We know that we will be rewarded for even the smallest service that we have done for the Lord. We're told in St Matthew that “whoever gives...even a cup of cold water, because he is a disciple of the Lord, shall not go without His reward” (Matt. 10:42).

We have the joy of looking forward to every little thing being rewarded that we have done for other people in this world.

Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council has said: “For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the value of human dignity, brotherhood, and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain,…transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: ‘a kingdom eternal and universal...’” (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, Point 39).

All the things of the world will perish and be forgotten, but their good “deeds will follow them.”

We can be reminded of that phrase of Scripture which says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where dust and moth consume, and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:19-20).

Every day, every hour, is an opportunity for us to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven.

Death can teach us many things about life. It can inspire us to live with only what we need, to be detached from the things we own and use, to respect the lasting merit of our good works, and to get rid of superfluous things—many good things.

Occasionally in your family, go through the cabinets of your children or their rooms and help them to make a decision to pass on to others what they don't need, so that in a subtle way, they get all these messages: they are not here just to accumulate things.

It's not that the one who has accumulated the most toys wins. Rather, the more we have gotten rid of things and passed them on to others will we be ready for the kingdom of heaven.

Death also teaches us to make good use of every day, to have goals, to have a plan for our spiritual life and, also for our professional and material life. Things I need to do today, with priorities, to do number one and then number two.

Ancient writers used to use the phrase Carpe diem (Horace, Odes 1,11,17). Horace, an early Latin writer, used this phrase ‘Seize the day’ to encourage people to make the most of the present moment.

Look around you and see if people on your mode of transport or people that you meet every day are making the most out of every moment. If they have an article or a book they're reading in spare moments, in the little pieces of time—one writer used to call them the butts of time—the little pieces of time throughout the day when maybe nothing is happening, to have something to be reading, something to be doing, catching up on other little projects or little things to be done here and there. Using our time well.

These words of Horace were a pagan maxim, but we can impart a Christian meaning to it by living each day with joy as if it were our whole life. We can ask ourselves: What is the will of God for me today?

From the things that happened from hour to hour—ups and downs, reversals of fortune, pieces of good news, pieces of bad news—we can decipher what exactly it is that God wants me to do today and try to follow His will with a lot of peace and serenity.

It's a chance that will never be repeated. Time is like a flowing divine treasure: it comes, it's here, and then it goes, never to return.

During our examination of conscience, we can please Our Lord with the quantity of acts of love, of our aspirations, of our moments of talking to our guardian angel, of favors we've done on behalf of others, of the quiet fulfillment of our duties, of our struggle to be patient.

Perhaps Our Lord will convert these deeds into splendid jewels of eternal worth. “Death ends our time of meriting” (cf. Leo X, Bull, Exsurge Domine, June 15, 1520). Interesting point.

I know a priest who went to see a man on his deathbed. This priest was really renowned for making money, helping people to be detached. He reminded this man on his deathbed: Look, after you die, really nothing belongs to you. It all belongs to God.

There's not much merit in giving away things after you die. There's much more merit in giving away things while you are still alive. That way you gain merit—an act of generosity, charity, justice.

We can make a resolution not to waste the days that remain to us in our lives. We do not know when we will die.

Every so often we hear of people dying young, or we hear of accidents, or we hear of people having heart attacks, young people. Those are like little gentle reminders to us from the Holy Spirit that we live in the hands of God.

That very uncertainty helps us to be watchful, like the doorkeeper awaiting the arrival of his master (cf. Luke 12:35-36). Hence the importance of regular sacramental Confession to be always in a state of grace. The Church has always recommended regular Confession.

Our examination of conscience at the end of the day can help us to recognize and discover the failings we may have had this day—failings of charity, of patience, of kindness, of justice, or failings in sensuality, failings in pride and vanity.

Therefore, we can build up those little details that we want to bring to Confession at the end of the week, to cleanse our soul from venial sin, and from any omissions that would indicate a lack of love.

Sometimes our greatest faults or sins could be our sins of omission, or our sins of neglect, things that we could have done and didn't do, or things that we could have done much better than we did.

Our meditation on death can move us to work more earnestly on the great project of our own sanctification. St. Paul says to the Ephesians, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of time” (Eph. 5:15-16).

We need to make up for lost time. Let us take to heart that wise observation written almost twenty centuries ago. Seneca, an ancient Latin writer, said, “It's not that we have so little time,” he said, “but that we have wasted so much of it” (Seneca, De brevitate vitae, 1,3). He was writing in the early centuries. Clocks and stopwatches had not yet been invented.

We could make an act of contrition for all the time that we may have wasted in our lives and make a resolution to make many wise decisions about our use of time.

We should want to have a long life so that we can give God abundant service. St. Josemaría used to say that if God has invested an awful lot in our education, in our formation, it's very good that we give Him a good return on that investment. It makes good economic sense.

It's a good thing to ask Our Lord for a long life so that we can serve more, so that hopefully we go before Our Lord with our arms full. It's so right for us to love life since this is a gift from God.

I heard of a person once who was involved in fundraising for a center for young people where they would get a lot of formation, growth in holiness, and learn many other skills, and develop their personality, and develop many other virtues.

To try and get his friends to contribute to the growth of this youth center, a center for young people, he said, ‘Look, if you buy a brick in this place, that brick will always be there. Long after you die, that brick will still be there. It would be like an investment for the future. That brick helping that center to form young people will give great glory to God over time and all that glory will be to your benefit at the end of time, at the last judgment.’

There are ways that we can remind people that they have to make good use of their time and also of everything that they have, for that abundant service of God.

We have the grace to open horizons for them, to see those things that perhaps they haven't seen, so that they also can go before Our Lord with their arms full.

If we're faithful to our Christian vocation, when the time comes for our encounter with Our Lord we will be prepared to make a tremendous act of love for Our Father God.

What a beautiful thing to die with words of love on our lips. That holy woman that I just mentioned did precisely that. She went out of this world giving praise to God.

“As in one's whole life, so also in one's death. Each one should struggle to give glory to the Lord Our God” (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Constitutions).

It's good to be aware that most people die as they have lived. The concept of last-minute deathbed conversions is very rare.

It's today we have to live better. This hour. Today we have to practice the virtues. Today we have to live with a greater awareness that there is an end to all this.

St Ignatius of Loyola says, “May He be honored and glorified. May other people be edified by the example of our patience and fortitude, by the testimony of our living faith, our hope, and our love for the eternal goods” (ibid.).

Our last moment on earth should be spent for the glory of God.

I remember a 19-year-old person dying in a hospital once in Asia and the doctor who was looking after him—this young fellow who had no religion, no formation, no nothing—remarked, ‘He died like a soldier.’ It's rather a beautiful comment.

We're called to die like soldiers, but “soldiers of Christ” (2 Tim. 2:3).

It will be a great joy when we give Our Lord the present of our professional work well done; of the apostolate that we've tried to do with all the opportunities that He's given to us; of those many, many details of service to our neighbors, in our family life, in our environment, in our office, in our club, in our neighborhood; to present to Him the joy that we contributed to our family life; and the effort that we made to overcome our defects.

We will leave behind us works that will endure. We will take our departure from this world in a way described by a poet: “I left my love the shore and the singing current. I did not return to the bank for his love, for his love was the water” (B. Llorens, A secret spring).

We know that if we live close to Our Lady all through our life, every hour and every day in the presence of Our Mother, she will also be with us. We say so frequently and throughout our life, we have said now, “at the hour of our death” (Prayer, Hail Mary).

There was a lady in Singapore whose husband passed away. But when he was alive, they would go to the happy hour every day in the local pub, and she would put on her earrings and her make-up and they'd go and have a good time.

Then her husband passed away, and she ended her days in a home for the elderly.

She had no religion, but the good nuns were converting her and teaching her the basic prayers, and she learned all of them very well.

During this time, when the time came for the happy hour each day, she liked to remember the good old times and to pretend that she was going to the happy hour. She'd also put on her earrings, maybe some make-up, to pretend she was accompanying her husband to the happy hour.

She learned all of the basic prayers, ready for her Baptism. But she couldn't quite master the second part of the Hail Mary because she kept saying: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the happy hour of our death, Amen. But somehow, she had put her finger on the nerve.

We can ask Our Lady to accompany us in that happy hour and to help any people around us also to find Our Lady and to be with her in that very special moment.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

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

OLV