Our sister death

THE expression comes from Opus Dei founder, St. Josemaria Escriva. He articulates the proper Christian attitude towards death.

Remember that Christ himself was talking a lot about his own death, even predicting it. We have to understand that we need to have death in our minds. In fact, we need to be friendly with death.

Thus, St. Josemaria said: “Don’t be afraid of death. Accept it from now on, generously…when God wills it, where God wills it, as God wills it. Don’t doubt what I say: it will come in the moment, in the place and in the way that are best—sent by your Father God. Welcome be our sister death.” (The Way, 739)

As a priest, I get to talk a lot about death. I often get invited to wakes, and to say funeral and death anniversary Masses. Truth is I always find death a theme ever rich in meaning, a mystery every inviting us to fathom and plumb. I can never say enough about it.

My wish is that not only priests in general should be talking about death. Everyone of us should. There’s a lot to learn from it, a lot of advantages to derive. It’s a great teacher, an important illuminator and rectifier in our life.

I would even say that if our culture becomes more friendly and even intimate with the reality of death, we can expect a change for the better, a boost to sobriety and objectivity where we tend to be frivolous and subjective.

The youth, the businessman, the politician—all of us—can have a wonderful built-in mechanism to effectively tackle the weaknesses, limitations and
temptations we all are exposed to in this life.

Being the last part of our life—no repeat performance here—and often accompanied by tragic elements like sicknesses, accidents, crimes, suffering, pain, trials, etc., death puts us at an edge, giving us a very strategic vantage point.

It makes us consider the real meaning of our life here on earth, and to acknowledge the reality of our life hereafter. In other words, it makes us realize the real essence of time. It also gives us glimpses of eternity.

In short, the consideration of death enables us to acquire an added and crucial dimension in our over-all outlook. Sad to say, this is a dimension often ignored, neglected, taken for granted. Even derided! This is unfortunate.

This is the dimension that completes our understanding of things, that helps us to distinguish between the essential and the merely accidental, that reminds us of the most radical and ultimate elements of our life. It identifies for us the irreducibly necessary in our life.

While we have to pay attention to the here and now, we should never forget
what is beyond the present and the actual. As persons and as children of God, we have to realize that our actuations do not only have a temporal scope. They also do have an eternal character.

This point, in my view, deserves to be pounded a bit more in our head and heart, because there’s a common thinking that considering death is just some kind of theoretical, abstract—read, useless—exercise.

Worse, there are those who think the habit of considering death regularly is kind of weird, a sign of a sick and unhealthy mind. Again, this is very unfortunate.

The challenge now is how to make the frequent and practical consideration
of death a normal part of our thoughts and concerns. I would say that such consideration stimulates our prayer. It leads us to get in touch with the spiritual world. It fosters our supernatural outlook in life.

Far from developing a dark attitude toward life and the world in general, the habitual consideration of death will redeem us from being hooked simply to the material and the here and now. It will lead us to our genuine freedom!