Preparation for a Happy DeathRead Time 9 min

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Daniel 12:1-3

Hebrews 10:11-14, 18

Mark 13:24-32

Death, judgment, heaven and hell — these are the four “Last Things” upon which the Church reflects in these final days and weeks of the liturgical year. Each one calls us to look the transient nature of earthly life in the eye and to focus instead on the ultimate and eternal realities toward which we are all headed, whether we like it or not.

Each is also inextricably linked to our understanding of “the Day of the Lord,” which is a rather broad biblical concept describing moments in which God decisively intervenes in human history to judge the world, establish his kingdom and bring about the final resolution of all things. Examples include the Babylonian Exile, Christ’s Death and Resurrection, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (which is what our Lord predicts in this week’s Gospel, before going on to describe the Lord’s coming at the end of time), and even our own death, when we will experience our personal, particular judgment as we go to meet our maker.

Though popular hymns like to assure us that “on the Day of the Lord, we will dance and sing,” our dance step on the Lord’s Day depends entirely upon how we conduct ourselves in the here and now. Each Sunday (the “Lord’s Day”) serves as a mini dress rehearsal. As the prophet Daniel describes it in our first reading this week, “some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever.” (Daniel 12:2-3)

All of this makes us tremble in our boots a bit, and that’s probably a good thing. It is good to be humbled and roused in the face of eternal realities. But we need not tremble alone, because Christ desires our salvation, and the communion we experience as members of his mystical Body puts all of us on the same team, supporting one another with our prayers, and mutually entrusting ourselves to the saving power of the Resurrection into which we have been baptized.

Let’s be honest; death is kind of a bully. It breaks our hearts and steals our loved ones. It fills us with fear and defines our whole transitory existence here on earth. Martin Heiddeger called man a “being-toward-death” because of the way that death lines all of our human experience, whether we realize it or not.

But bullies are best confronted head on and in strength of numbers. Death deserves to be stared down by someone bigger than itself and told to move along, and that someone is the Lord of Life, around whom we rally to face it without fear. This is precisely what the Church is intent on doing in a particular way during this month of November, as we remember the faithful departed in our prayers and especially at the altar. As the General Instruction of the Roman Missal puts it, “The Church offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice of Christ’s Pasch for the dead so that, since all the members of Christ’s Body are in communion with one another, what implores spiritual help for some, may bring comforting hope to others.”

This, in turn, prepares us for the Day of the Lord, both personal and universal, as we come to see death not as a Grim Reaper who comes to overtake us, but rather, as an eminently active, human act in which we are called to give our definitive “yes” to God and surrender our whole existence to the fullness of being and life.

Many today would prefer to die either quietly in their sleep, or unconsciously in a coma, or even abruptly in some sort of accident where they would not have to process the fact of their dying. But this is because they fear death more than they fear — or rather trust — the Living God.

We should pray not for a sudden death, but for a happy death — a death in which we are able to be fully cognizant and so give our final “yes” to God, humbly imploring him for mercy, and surrendering our will to his in love, ideally with the help of the Church’s “Last Rites,” which are designed to usher us across that finish line and into eternal life. This is the perfect death that Christ reveals to us on the cross as he says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” (Luke 23:46) before breathing his last.

“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man,” (Luke 21:36) we proclaim in our alleluia verse this week. Thus and so, “You (O Lord) will show (us) the path of life, fullness of joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.” (Psalm 16:11)