PART II
I would like to offer a brief description of some central points of interest on this topic from the perspective of Catholic teachings.Death and Dying:
Death and dying are two very different parts of terminating this life and our passage into eternal life. In the Catholic liturgy we express our basic belief: “for your faithful Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them In heaven.” (Preface I for the Dead). Dying is the process of ending life. At times, it is quite peaceful, more often, it offers difficult and even horrifying experiences of pain and suffering. Dying is something that happens to us. As Paul implies in Romans, dying is the wages of sin. Dying is a dimension of that often-brutal reality. Death, on the otherhand, is the great act of freedom. It is our passage into life eternal. It is the entrance into a new experience of life that is total goodness, total freedom and unending happiness. It is a life infinitely beyond any human experience of beauty, joy and happiness. It transports us beyond any measure of time.
Particular Judgement:
Death ends the time of choice. At death, we stand in the presence of God to be judged. It is a time of reward, most often with purification or punishment. It is either heaven or hell. We have chosen God or we have rejected God.
Time and eternity:
The passage of death is marked by our entrance into eternity. This means that there is no more time. There is only a never-ending now. Everything and everybody is forever. There is no “next Tuesday” or “later in the day.” There is no second chance or fifty-second chance. We are locked into the fullness of life and love, or we are set in permanent isolation from God and all that that means.
Heaven and Hell:
Heaven is what we were made for. It is the final answer to all of the questions of life. It is God’s final response to evil, suffering, injustice, the death of innocents, and every manifestation of humanity’s cruelty and nature’s arbitrary destructiveness. Heaven is our full participation in the victory of Christ in the Resurrection. Heaven is the gift of eternal happiness beyond the power of our mind to imagine and the hunger of our heart to long for. There is nothing in our experience that can unveil the true wonder of heaven. It will be the ultimate surprise for all who receive the loving embrace of God. Hell, on the other hand, is the rejection of God. It is first and foremost a self-inflicted punishment. It is the choice of the person, not the decision of God. It is hard to balance such a permanent chastisement with an all-loving and all-merciful God; yet it is clearly an option, since we have free will. We might note, however, that the Church has never declared that any particular person is in hell.
Purgatory:
Purgatory is a process of completing the transformation and purification that is the goal of the Christian life. It completes the journey with Jesus, to free our heart from clinging to all that is not God. Since it is part of eternity, there is no way we can relate any measurement of time to its process.
The Resurrection of the body:
The person who dies is never dead in the eyes of God. That person is now in eternity with a new life that is beyond our imagination. As a person, somehow one will have a body that shares in the riches of the new life in heaven. They will share in the Resurrection of Christ that frees their body of the consequences and limits of sin.
Life after Death:
Before Vatican II, all our remembrance of the dead emphasized the loss and grief of the living. The mass vestments were black. The message was somber. Vatican II changed the focus to the victory of Christ over death. The funeral is now a celebration of the Resurrection. Compassion and consolation for the loss of the loved ones must not be neglected. However, there also is a message of profound hope in a new life that is infinitely richer. Death is genuinely a passage to a new experience of life that transcends anything we can envision. This truth is trivialized when we say the person has “gone to a better place.” Paul reminds us in I Corinthians: “no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (I Cor 2:9) The language that says “Masses for the Dead” and “prayers for the souls in purgatory” are two of many examples where we still do not understand and give credence to the fact that the deceased are now more alive than they ever were. Speaking on this point, Karl Rahner has a remarkable set of observations: “I have often reflected upon the surest comfort for those who mourn. It is this: a firm faith in the real and continual presence of our loved ones: it is the clear and penetrating conviction that death has not destroyed them, nor carried them away. They are not even absent, but living near to us, transfigured; having lost, in their glorious change, no delicacy of their souls, no tenderness of their hearts, nor especial preference in their affection. On the contrary, they have in depth and in fervor of devotion, grown larger a hundredfold. Death is, for the good, a translation into light, into power, into love.”
Death is a real part of life:
All of these reflections express the utterly absolute reality of death. This should help us focus on our life. The non-negotiable aspect of our mortality must have a significant role in our life. It has to play a role in determining our priorities and goals. It needs to facilitate our constant search for what is real. This awareness of death need not be cast in darkness and withdrawal from life, rather, it should help us to embrace life. Life is a gracious gift. Our responsibility is to live it as fully as possible. These insights should, however, lead us to face life with a transparency that is fully aware of our destination. How we encounter life and embrace death can make all the difference in the world.
A Personal Reflection
I finished my seminary education just months before the Second Vatican Council. I do not recall any training in how to deal with dying and death. There was nothing on how to administer the last rites. There was nothing on counseling and walking with the families of the deceased.I suppose we were expected to learn these things from the pastor in our first parish, but that did not work for me. My first pastor was no help in this area of extreme pastoral importance.
Added to my pastoral ignorance was a deeply hidden fear of death. Consequently, I developed an elaborate set of skills that helped me to evade visiting the sick and, especially, celebrating funerals.
I lived in a poor, overcrowded Black community on the south side of Chicago and moved quite comfortably into an activist role. I was a natural for the situation and even began “my fifteen minutes of fame.”
