Death and the Good Use of Time (2nd Ed.)

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.

There was an elderly lady once in Singapore who used to go with her husband every day to the happy hour for a few drinks. Whenever she did, she would put on her makeup and her earrings and make herself look well. Then her husband passed away and she ended her days in a home for the aged run by some nuns. She had no religion.

During these days when she was there, she liked to remember the good old times when she went with her husband to the happy hour. When the time came for the happy hour, she would pretend that she was going to the happy hour. She would put on her earrings, do herself up a little bit, relive those good moments.

Little by little, the nuns were evangelizing her and preparing her for Baptism. She learned all the basic prayers. 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.

In some ways, she put her finger on the nerve. The hour of our death, for Christians, is a happy hour. It's the opening and the pathway to eternal life. It's the purpose for which we have lived. It's not the end, but the beginning. Life is changed, not taken away.

In this retreat, we look at the reality of our death. Often, we give a lot of importance to other people's deaths, but not to our own. Death is the separation of the soul from the body. But the soul goes on living.

Death can be something very positive, very beautiful. I've seen many people die very beautiful, happy, holy deaths—something that we should all desire because we're going forward to the eternal wedding feast.

Pope St. John Paul II liked to talk a lot about how we're all called to the eternal wedding feast. Marriage in this world, he said, is just a preparation for marriage in the next.

St. Josemaría Escrivá said something similar. Marriage is a pathway to holiness, to sanctity (cf. Conversations, Point 91). If there's something that isn't quite right in our marriage, or things don't go as we thought, or things work out completely the opposite of what we had planned—never mind. This is all just part of the journey. It's a preparation for marriage in the next, the eternal wedding feast.

Very often in Scripture, Christ is referred to as the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1,10, Mark 2:18-20, John 3:29, Isa. 61:10, etc.). The bridegroom comes to seek his bride (cf. Matt. 25:6).

We don't know too much about our death. It's a bit of a mystery. But Our Lord has told us that He may come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5: 2).

On many occasions, He's told us that therefore we have to be prepared, to have our lamps burning brightly (Luke 12:35), to be like the prudent virgins who took enough oil in their lamps (Matt. 25:2-3). Every so often when we have an occasion for formation, or to grow in our spiritual life, on a daily basis, or on a weekly or yearly basis, we have an opportunity to take oil in our lamps.

This retreat is one of those opportunities. The five foolish virgins did not think of the future; did not plan ahead. They gave themselves to the enjoyment of the moment. They didn't care about what was up ahead.

But then the moment came. “Behold, the bridegroom is coming.” They found that they had not enough oil in their lamps, and so “they said to the prudent ones, ‘Give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out.’ But they replied, ‘There may not be enough for us and for you. You had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves.’”

They went off to buy oil. It wasn't that they did nothing. They went to buy oil. But the problem was that their decision came too late. They'd gone off to buy it when the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall, and the door was closed. It's very final. The period of earning was finished (Matt. 25:1-10).

It's a great invitation to us to use our time well. Time is a gift—every day, every hour, every minute. God will ask us to account for it.

“The other virgins arrived later. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open for us. But he replied, ‘In truth, I tell you, I do not know you.’ Stay awake because you do not know either the day or the hour” (Matt. 25:11-13).

It's very good to plan your death in every detail. It’s good thing to talk to your children about death, to realize that we only have each other on loan, but we will be together forever in eternity.

We have a lot to look forward to. “What we are, what we have, is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”

“To some, he gave five talents, to some, three, to some, one” (Matt. 25:15). Everybody has their talents. None of us can say, ‘I don't have any talents.’ We all have talents that Our Lord wants us to work at, to gain more, and to build ourselves up to be the great people that He wants us to be.

Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. We are carried in the palm of the hand of the God who loves us. Our Heavenly Father is looking after us. We offer trust, abandonment, faith. We can live with great peace and joy. We don't have to worry about our deaths because everything in our life has been chosen. We've been chosen out before the foundation of the world, to be holy.

If God has chosen everything in our life, He has also chosen the moment and the manner of our death. It's a good thing to think about in this retreat, to prepare for that reality.

If God has chosen the moment of our death, then it's a moment of grace. It's something we can look forward to. We can make an act of acceptance of death: “whenever it may please you, as it may please you, wheresoever it may please you.”

It can be a great peace, because it's chosen by God, because it's something very good. Our Lord is going to say, “Come, you blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

A peaceful and holy death is a great grace. St. Joseph is the patron of a holy death.

Often, God's ways are not our ways. He also may call some of our loved ones before He calls us, but that is also a pathway to holiness.

What He wants though is that we “take all in our lamps”—through every confession, every spiritual direction, every recollection or seminar or retreat.

In Friends of God, we're told, “Time is short for loving, for giving, for making atonement. We mustn't squander this period of the world's history, which God has entrusted to each one of us” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 39). These are very haunting words.

This period of the world's history has been entrusted to each one of us to influence, to shape for the better, possibly to form our children, to do the great things that we perhaps dreamt of doing but were not able to do.

If that moment has been chosen by God before the foundation of the world, then it can be a very good thing to consecrate our death to God: ‘Lord, I give you here and now that moment of my death. I realize that it will be the best way to die.’

It doesn't really matter how we die—whether we drown, or we're poisoned, or we die in a car accident, or cancer, or a heart attack. It will be the one that God chose for us.

The important thing to remember is that most people die as they have lived. The reality of last-minute deathbed conversions is very rare.

You think of all the people that you know that have died in the past twelve months. Probably all of them died as they had lived. There were very few last-minute conversions.

The important thing is to live well, to take this day, this week, this month, this year seriously; to live this day as if it was the last one that God gave to me on this planet, to see it as a grace, and to use our time to grow in holiness and to do apostolate. It's to “build up for ourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20).

One night when I was working as a doctor in a big general hospital, a 400-bed hospital, it was a private nursing home beside the hospital—we normally did not get called over there; it was the domain of the consultants—but I was on duty that night, and they needed a doctor.

I got called over. I was brought into a room where there was a man in his 50s who was dying of cancer. His family were around his bed, and when I came in, he asked them to leave.

Then he took a hold of my wrist, and his hand was already cold and clammy. Death had already begun to creep into his body. He was going to die that night. He looked at me with a look of terror in his face and said, ‘Doctor, don't let me die.’

I learned a lot from the experience. This man was well to do. He was in the best hospital in the country. But it was as though he had come to the hour of his death and he realized that all his treasures were in this world. He had no treasures in the next.

That phrase of Scripture came to mind, “Do not build 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: 19-21).

Every day is an opportunity for us to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, to practice the corporal works of mercy, to get rid of material things. Getting rid of material things after we die has no merit. We don't own anything; everything belongs to God.

One writer says, We cannot appreciate life until we realize that it can be taken away from us. With this retreat, we could try to make radical resolutions to use our time well.

Some people say time is money, time is business. St. Josemaria used to say, “Time is a treasure. … We can't cast this treasure uselessly overboard.”

It's a treasure, it's a gift of God, it's a talent—a talent for us to do something with. The Book of Ecclesiastes says, “God has appointed time for every matter, for every work—a time to plant, a time to reap what has been planted; a time to be born and a time to die” (Eccles. 3:1-2).

When I was living in Singapore, there was a convent of nuns up the road, and when there was an extra priest in town, I would go and say Mass for them. Some were very elderly; they didn't have a priest regularly. Just to get into the car was very difficult. There was a 93-year-old and an 89-year-old, and a few others.

Everybody expected the 93-year-old to die first, but the 89-year-old died first. I went to the wake and there I met the 93-year-old.

I asked her, ‘But how are you now?’ With a glint in her eye she said, ‘Well, I'm next’ as though ‘I missed the train this time, but I won't miss it next time.’

Then she said, ‘I'm waiting in joyful hope.’ This lady had been in Burma during the Second World War looking after orphans. She had done the most amazing things in her life. You could write a book about the adventures she’d had—a wonderful life, lived to the full.

Now she is looking forward to heaven, looking forward to her death, “waiting in joyful hope." It's a phrase from the Mass that comes just after the Our Father.

What a nice thing if we met someone on the supermarket or in the street one day and they asked us how we are and we were to say, ‘I'm waiting in joyful hope.’ It's a great way to live.

The time that God has given to us is for glory. It's for grace. It's for eternity. It's an opportunity.

What do we mean by the ‘sanctification of time’? We try to use it well for the glory of God. It's an instrument in our hands for doing something with. The important thing is what we do with it.

It's like a pen or a pencil. Somebody says, ‘I have a pen, I have a pen, I have a pen, I have a pencil, I have a pencil, I have a pencil.’ The question is, what are you going to do with that pen? Will you sign a contract? Will you sign a check? Will you give it your autograph?

Similarly with our time, it's not that we have time. We don't go around telling everyone, ‘I have time, I have time, I have time.’ The key thing is, what are you going to do with that time? It's an instrument in our hands for doing something with.

It's a given in order to work, to serve, to develop ourselves. to give glory to God. That's why it's very important to plan our time. If you look at any of the management textbooks, they talk a lot about planning time.

Having a to-do list. Writing things down. Annotating our priorities. Numbering them one, two, three. What order do I have to do things? It makes us more efficient, more effective. We make better use of our time.

There was a teenager once who was encouraged to make a schedule for the weekend. But his reply was, ‘I have schedules all week and timetables all week in school. I want my freedom. I want to do what I want.’

Finally, he agreed that a timetable helped him to use his freedom to the maximum. He could do many more enjoyable things in one weekend, and even practice skills and visit places he never dreamt of.

Planning our time—each day, each period of each day, each hour—is the key to using our time well, so that we don't just go looking for time for its own sake.

That time has been given to us—to me, very personally. The same time or opportunities have not been given to other people. It has to be used for the purpose for which it was given. God will ask us to account.

Also, it's been given. It's not ours. We don't own it. We can't add a single second or hour. We can't shorten it or lengthen it. It's one of God's gifts that He's given, and we have very little playroom.

God gives His time, and at the end He asks for it back. All of our time is limited. We get a package of years. Some people get twenty, some people eighty, sixty, forty. Some babies just get a few moments of light. But every person gets their time.

When Our Lord speaks about time in the New Testament, it's interesting that He talks about small increments of time. He doesn't talk about millennium goals or Vision 2030.

He says, “This day you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This day has its importance.

“Woman, my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). Our Lord talks a lot about His hour.

He can do a lot of things in an hour. “Now has the hour come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). Our Lord doesn't talk in terms of months or years.

We can try to live our life hour by hour. The sanctification of time is made up of the sanctification of moments. An act of thanksgiving is an act of a moment. A smile is an act of a moment. An act of faith is an act of a moment.

You could also see that in Scripture, there's a great sense of urgency with time. “Mary went with haste into the hill country” (Luke 1:39). “The shepherds went with haste” (Luke 2:16) to Bethlehem.

When people see the will of God, they don't dilly-dally. They go quickly to fulfill that will.

We could ask Our Lord also that we might have that same sense of urgency to do the thing I'm supposed to be doing now, declaring war on procrastination; fulfilling our duty of this moment. Where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be doing?

We're told, “When Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at work in the tax collector's place” (Matt. 9:9). Matthew was where he was supposed to be. He was doing what he was supposed to be doing.

He wasn't reading the newspaper. He wasn't down the road talking to a friend. He wasn't doing a crossword or answering his email. He was fulfilling his duty.

Is it any wonder then that Christ noticed him? He saw Matthew. There might have been many other people around that He didn't see. But He noticed Matthew. This is the sort of person I need to build my Church.

Time is a sacred thing. We should try and use it for that purpose for which God has given it to us.

If we compare time and money, they're analogous instruments, yet they're both instruments, different in what they're used for and in their source.

Time is from God. We can't directly multiply it. We have no direct control in the total amount of time. But we do have a certain control over money. We can multiply money.

There are people who can offer to multiply our money for us, but nobody can offer to do that for time.

No one can say, ‘You only have two days to prepare for this deadline, this exam or this report.’ Or, ‘Your state of your health means you have six months to live, but I can give you six years.’

With time you can make money, but with money you cannot make time.

Time is more basic. It's greater. It's divine. We need time for everything, but we don't need money for everything.

Our Lord has said to us, “Trade until I come” (Luke 19:13). I'm giving you this period of time. You go and let's see what you can do with it.

He set apart a time for each thing. It's a definite amount. We can't make an hour run faster or slower. We can only use it. It comes, and then it goes, never to return.

It's a flowing, divine treasure. God is the real owner of time. It's holy because it belongs to God, and therefore should be treated as something sacred.

That's one of the reasons for the virtue of punctuality. It's the virtue whereby we respect the time of others. Everything in our life should be on time, trying to be present a few minutes before the time appointed. That way, we're punctual.

If ever we get delayed and we don't make it for our appointments, it’s pretty good manners to send a message or a text to say, ‘Look, I'm sorry I'll be two minutes late’ or ‘I'm too late in traffic.’ Even if it's only two minutes, it sends the message that I value your time.

Your time is part of your dignity. I respect your time because I respect you.

Of course, this is a very good thing to teach in the family: on time for meals, on time to get up in the morning, on time to go to bed at night. With the schedule of the family, we teach children a certain sense of time.

Now is the time to do your homework. Now is not the time to watch TV, or to be on your phone, or to be playing football, or whatever. When the time for rest comes and recreation, now is the time to have a good time. Family fun is very important. Plan it well.

Our Lord wants us to trade with time. You receive five talents, let's see if you can bring five more talents, using it with order, trying to improve what we do at a given time.

“A job done well,” said one of the saints, “is a job that's done in the shortest possible time.” It's a very good thing to work against the clock. Try and see if each time we do a job, we can get it done in less time.

There was a servant who “hid his master's talent” (Matt. 25:18). He lost the opportunity of multiplying that talent. Probably we have few opportunities to kill time.

Our problems are probably the opposite. When we have little time, little pieces of time, we might think we cannot use it for anything. But in the five minutes here and the five minutes there—we could read an article, we could say a decade of the Rosary.

We plan our time well and have things to do that we want to get through. We'll use more and better those few little pieces of time that crop up from time to time.

There can be a temptation to bury that time. But if you put all those little pieces of time together, it can come to be something very useful. “Well done, good and faithful servant. Because you have been faithful in little things, I will entrust you with many” (Matt. 25:23).

Time is free, but it's also priceless. “He has made everything suitable for its time,” we’re told. “Moreover, He has put a sense of past and future into their minds. Yet they cannot find out what God has done from the very beginning to the end” (Eccles. 3:11).

In the Catechism, we're told, “To God all moments are present in their immediacy. When, therefore, he establishes his eternal plan of predestination, he includes in it each person's free response to grace” (CCC, Point 600).

Our Lord gives us time to respond to His grace. Every minute that passes is grace that has flowed.

We can try to respond to that grace by doing in each moment what we're supposed to be doing, so that we're not idle in the marketplace, saying, “No man has hired us” (Matt. 20:6-7). The reality is that there's plenty of work to be done.

“When I reflect on this,” we're told in Friends of God, “how well I understand St. Paul's exclamation when he writes to the Corinthians, ‘time is short' (1 Cor. 7:29). How short indeed is the time of our passing through this world.

“For the true Christian, these words ring deep down in his heart as a reproach to his lack of generosity, and as a constant invitation to be loyal. Brief indeed is our time for loving, for giving, for making atonement.

“It would be very wrong, therefore, for us to waste it, or to cast this treasure irresponsibly overboard. We mustn't squander this period of the world's history which God has entrusted to each one of us” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 39).

I can ask Our Lady, that she who “went with haste” into the hill country might give us the grace to make very good use of our time, in all the little things of each day, and in that way, to prepare for the holy and the happy death that God has prepared for us.

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.

KI