They were an ideal parish family. The husband served on the parish council and coached the school basketball team. The wife helped count the Sunday donations on Monday morning and helped with religious instructions on Saturday morning. The children attended the parish school and served faithfully at the altar. They were pleasant people, always the warm smile at the church door and always the homemade shortbreads at Christmas.
When I received notice that the wife was a patient in Rhode Island hospital, a pastoral visit came immediately to mind and was certainly deserved. As I arrived at her sick room door, she was sitting upright in the hospital bed; her face was calm but serious. She managed a smile and we exchanged standard concerned pastor/ailing parishioner conversation. Then, looking very resolute, she remarked to me, “Father, I am not afraid of death but I am afraid of dying.” More soul-searching words have never been addressed to me in my entire priesthood. “Father, I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying.”
Yes, of course, death. Death is a tough hurdle even for the devout believer. Yet for the Christian believer death, early or late, expected or sudden, should be filled with promise. Understandable fear and inevitable apprehension can be eased by the promise of a face-to-face encounter with God himself, the Beatific Vision, celebrated by the saints and pondered by the theologians. The heavenly choir of angels and the numerous bands of saints will suddenly become a welcoming ensemble sharing eternal joy and happiness. The presence of loved ones─a spouse, parents, family, friends, neighbors─will cheer an already gladdened heart. Indeed, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what things God has prepared for those who love him (1Cor2:9)!”
Again as St. Paul writes more soberly in this coming Sunday’s second reading, “Brothers and sisters: When this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1Cor. 15:54-58).”
For the faithful, “life is changed, not ended,” as the Sacred Liturgy reminds the devout. “When this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in Heaven.” So Christian hope can sweeten the prospect of eternal life. St. Augustine had similar tender thoughts on the next life. The faithful Christian is promised “eternal salvation, everlasting happiness with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the joyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, and after resurrection from the dead no further fear of dying.”
But, as my ailing parishioner suggested, dying is another question. Yes, dying is pain and aches and tubes and needles and tears and bandages and gasped breath and oxygen masks and respirators and bed pans and feigned hope and tested faith and separation from loved ones and more tears and more pain and more soiled sheets and then exhaustion, coma, and the final breath. Dying leads inevitably to regrets about the past, to concern about the present, and to apprehension about the future. Dying is very unpleasant.
Yet dying, for the Christian, has a more profound dimension that ought not to be disregarded and should even be respected. To be blunt, dying is a time to atone for our sins. The sufferings of this world, in the midst of life and at the end of life, may be united with the death of Christ on the Cross and offered to the Father in expiation for our own failures and in atonement for sins throughout history. Thus, God allows our final hours to be productive, even to be rewarding, and especially to be redemptive. Dying indeed “is swallowed up in victory.” For the faithful believer, its every “sting” may bear fruit in eternal life.
