NO, death definitely does not have
the last word. It’s
life, everlasting life with God in heaven, or God forbid, eternal
condemnation in hell. Neither are pain and suffering the main
ingredient or the ultimate goal of our earthly life. It’s joy, peace,
victory, success, offered to us by Christ himself, our savior.
We need to be clear about these fundamental truths, so we
be guided properly in our life, making the right choices, since our
life is also not a matter of fate or luck, but rather of choice, first
that of God who chooses to love us in spite of whatever, and that of
ours. But we have to learn to choose properly.
Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, including the
worst scenarios possible to our human, earthly condition, we can
always manage to find joy and peace if we allow ourselves to be guided
by our Christian faith, rather than by our human estimation of things
alone.
We have to look at death from the point of view of faith.
This gives us the ultimate measure of reality. Objectivity is not only
matter of the senses nor of the intellect. We cannot simply rely on
our feelings, our hunches, our reasoning. We have to use our faith,
which our Lord in the first place gives us abundantly.
That faith tells us that we actually do not die, because
even if our bodily organism dies and disintegrates, there is something
in us, our spiritual soul, that simply cannot die. That´s the very
nature of things spiritual. They are beyond the wear and tear of this
life.
But it can suffer the so-called spiritual death, or the
second death, when it fails to get sustained by its ultimate proper
source of life who is God. The life of our soul is not just made up of
our ideas, plans and desires. These hardly survive the physical death.
Its real life-source is God.
This is a point we need to be clear about. Our soul is not
the vegetative or the animal type that animates the living plants and
animals. Such life-giving soul dies and disappears together with the
death and decay of the plants and animals.
Not so with our human soul. Ours is a spiritual soul that,
while distinct from the Spirit of God, nonetheless participates in
that Spirit. It is meant to be with the Spirit. And it´s the
separation from the Spirit, which we can freely do, that spells its
death or at least puts it in jeopardy.
That is why our soul somehow feels a longing for God, as
expressed beautifully by St. Augustine once when he said: ¨My Lord, my
soul is restless until it rests in you.¨ There is a nostalgia for God
and things spiritual and supernatural, which we can also misinterpret
and misdirect, ending in some superstition. That´s because our soul
has God as its true home.
We need to know the true nature and purpose of our soul.
While a lot of theories, ideologies and creeds can offer a variety of
ideas about this topic, we need to attend to this issue, because it´s
basic, it is what gives over-all meaning and direction to our life.
We just have to wade through the many aspects involved in
this process. But it´s all worthwhile. And while we are at this stage,
we should not forget that a great source of enlightenment in this
regard is our Christian faith.
There we are told that the very substance of our soul´s
life is love, the one that defines God himself (Deus caritas est, St.
John says in his letter) and fully manifested, made available and
freely given to us by Christ. For us who claim to be Christians, we
should not ignore the relevant doctrine and praxis taught by Christ
and now handed down by the Church.
We have to bridge the gap between the faith we officially
profess and the life we actually live. It´s amazing that at this age
of supposedly dramatic progress in technology and knowledge, this
anomaly between faith and life not only continues but is actually
worsening.
We have to take our faith more seriously, and discover the
many happy, liberating truths about ourselves that can help us derive
good from the evil in this world, and eternal life with God from our
death. We have to free ourselves from the confinement of a
sense-and-reason-based worldview.
Remember Christ saying: “Unless a grain of wheat falls
into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears
much fruit.” (Jn 12,24)
life, everlasting life with God in heaven, or God forbid, eternal
condemnation in hell. Neither are pain and suffering the main
ingredient or the ultimate goal of our earthly life. It’s joy, peace,
victory, success, offered to us by Christ himself, our savior.
We need to be clear about these fundamental truths, so we
be guided properly in our life, making the right choices, since our
life is also not a matter of fate or luck, but rather of choice, first
that of God who chooses to love us in spite of whatever, and that of
ours. But we have to learn to choose properly.
Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, including the
worst scenarios possible to our human, earthly condition, we can
always manage to find joy and peace if we allow ourselves to be guided
by our Christian faith, rather than by our human estimation of things
alone.
We have to look at death from the point of view of faith.
This gives us the ultimate measure of reality. Objectivity is not only
matter of the senses nor of the intellect. We cannot simply rely on
our feelings, our hunches, our reasoning. We have to use our faith,
which our Lord in the first place gives us abundantly.
That faith tells us that we actually do not die, because
even if our bodily organism dies and disintegrates, there is something
in us, our spiritual soul, that simply cannot die. That´s the very
nature of things spiritual. They are beyond the wear and tear of this
life.
But it can suffer the so-called spiritual death, or the
second death, when it fails to get sustained by its ultimate proper
source of life who is God. The life of our soul is not just made up of
our ideas, plans and desires. These hardly survive the physical death.
Its real life-source is God.
This is a point we need to be clear about. Our soul is not
the vegetative or the animal type that animates the living plants and
animals. Such life-giving soul dies and disappears together with the
death and decay of the plants and animals.
Not so with our human soul. Ours is a spiritual soul that,
while distinct from the Spirit of God, nonetheless participates in
that Spirit. It is meant to be with the Spirit. And it´s the
separation from the Spirit, which we can freely do, that spells its
death or at least puts it in jeopardy.
That is why our soul somehow feels a longing for God, as
expressed beautifully by St. Augustine once when he said: ¨My Lord, my
soul is restless until it rests in you.¨ There is a nostalgia for God
and things spiritual and supernatural, which we can also misinterpret
and misdirect, ending in some superstition. That´s because our soul
has God as its true home.
We need to know the true nature and purpose of our soul.
While a lot of theories, ideologies and creeds can offer a variety of
ideas about this topic, we need to attend to this issue, because it´s
basic, it is what gives over-all meaning and direction to our life.
We just have to wade through the many aspects involved in
this process. But it´s all worthwhile. And while we are at this stage,
we should not forget that a great source of enlightenment in this
regard is our Christian faith.
There we are told that the very substance of our soul´s
life is love, the one that defines God himself (Deus caritas est, St.
John says in his letter) and fully manifested, made available and
freely given to us by Christ. For us who claim to be Christians, we
should not ignore the relevant doctrine and praxis taught by Christ
and now handed down by the Church.
We have to bridge the gap between the faith we officially
profess and the life we actually live. It´s amazing that at this age
of supposedly dramatic progress in technology and knowledge, this
anomaly between faith and life not only continues but is actually
worsening.
We have to take our faith more seriously, and discover the
many happy, liberating truths about ourselves that can help us derive
good from the evil in this world, and eternal life with God from our
death. We have to free ourselves from the confinement of a
sense-and-reason-based worldview.
Remember Christ saying: “Unless a grain of wheat falls
into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears
much fruit.” (Jn 12,24)
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