Two weeks back, I was startled to read an article in America magazine by a very well known and successful female Catholic scholar, writer and psychologist who admits that as she ages her fear of dying increases. She experiences surges of anxiety and finds them very dispiriting. She is a woman of deep faith but that does not remove the fear.
I think that most of us can agree that we share a less than enthusiastic reaction to our approaching death (and let’s remember, death is approaching for every single one of us!) She was not talking about the vast number of deaths that are simply hideous and the horror, dreadfulness and the desolation that so many human beings suffer as victims of disease, accidents, natural disasters, war and cruel torture. Her fear of death even applies to those situations where the person is surrounded by loved ones and relatively comfortable. She speaks of the desolation and agony of a disintegrating self, an intense sadness arising over giving up one’s part of the ongoing drama of daily life.
I was very saddened by the article. I believe it is perfectly normal to fear the process of dying but not the fact of being dead. We are created for eternal life. We have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. In death, our faith tells us we enter into an unimaginable, extraordinary existence of joy forever. The wonders that are beyond the door to eternal life are worth infinitely more than any burdens we have carried in this life.
The oft repeated cliché is, “the only thing in life about which we can be absolutely, totally certain is the fact of our death.” That statement is true and it challenges us to prepare for our death a little more realistically.
Onward through that door!
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Death is the great equalizer in the human condition. The wealthiest and the poorest, the most brilliant and the most simple, those who work hardest and those who never hit a lick – each and every one of us will experience death. For most of us, it is a little sooner than we anticipate.
Regretfully, our society, being heavily tilted towards materialism, dreads the thought of death. We don’t want to talk about it, we don’t want to think about it and we are not particularly eager to confront it. Thus, the importance of Ash Wednesday. Thus, the value of Lent.
While all people experience death, some cultures handle it a little differently. Mediterranean people, with a great zest for life, are maybe more reticent to confront the reality of death than others, such as the Irish. There are a lot of jokes about the Irish and death and I think those jokes flow from the fact that the Irish as a people had a refined sense of the miracle of death. In the Celts, the eternal world was so close to the natural world that death was not seen as a terribly destructive or threatening event. When we enter the eternal world, we are going home to where no shadow, pain or darkness can ever touch us again.
A wonderful Irish poet, John O’Donohue, writes that, “Death is a lonely visitor. When it visits your home nothing is ever the same again. There is an empty place at the table. There is an absence in the house. Something breaks within you that will never come together again.”
Sometimes people are afraid about dying. There is no need to be afraid. When the moment of your dying comes, you will be given everything that you need to make that journey in a graceful, elegant and trusting way. It is a wonderful privilege to be with a person passing on into eternity. When you are present at the sacrament of someone’s death, be very mindful of their situation. When someone we know and love is dying, we should not concentrate too much on our own fear and sense of loss but give all our attention to this person who is about to begin this awesome journey. The dying person requires our total presence and total oneness with that person. Everything should be done to make their passing as comfortable and secure as possible.
After the death comes the wake.
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