Henri Nouwen on Death

Taken from this great spiritual author's book, Bread for the Journey


Many people say, "I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying." This is quite understandable, since dying often means illness, pain, dependency, and loneliness.

The fear of dying is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the most human of all human fears. Jesus himself entered into that fear. In his anguish "sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44). How must we deal with our fear of dying? Like Jesus we must pray that we may receive special strength to make the great passage to new life. Then we can trust that God will send us an angel to comfort us, as he sent an angel to Jesus.

We often wonder how death will occur for us. Through illness, accident, war, or a natural disaster? Will our deaths happen suddenly or gradually? There are no answers for these questions, so we really should not spend time worrying about them. We don't know how our lives will end, and this is a blessed ignorance! But there is an important question that we should consider: When our time to die comes, will we die in such a way that those we leave behind will not be devastated by grief or left with feelings of shame or guilt?

How we leave others depends largely on how we prepare ourselves for death. When we are able to die with grateful hearts, grateful to God and our families and friends, our deaths can become sources of life for others.

How do we make our deaths gifts for others? Very often people's lives are destroyed, harmed or permanently wounded by the deaths of their relatives or friends. We have to do whatever we can to avoid this. When we are near death what we say to those who are close to us, whether in spoken or in written words, is very important. When we express gratitude to them, ask forgiveness for our shortcomings and offer forgiveness for theirs, and express our sincere desire that they continue their lives without remorse but remembering the graces of our lives, then our deaths can become true gifts.

Hope and faith will both come to an end when we die. But love will remain. Love is eternal. Love comes from God and returns to God. When we die, we will lose everything that life gave us except love. The love with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us. It is the divine, indestructible core of our being. This love not only will remain but will also bear fruit from generation to generation.

When we approach death let us say to those we leave behind, "Don't let your heart be troubled. The love of God that dwells in my heart will come to you and offer you consolation and comfort."

A Hope Full of Immortality

The ancient Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul. It was a natural consequence of their understanding of the human person being composed of body and soul. The body, like all matter, decayed and died, but the soul, which was immaterial, lived on in some fashion.

The ancient Hebrews came later to the idea of the soul's immortality. Unlike the Greeks however, Jews never divided the human person into sections such as body and soul. The human person is always an indivisible whole in Scripture. Rather than a philosophical conclusion, the immortality of the soul developed from faith in God's unfailing justice. Through the centuries it became painfully evident that full justice was not possible in this life. Wealth and a long life were not always the lot of those who walked in the Lord's ways. Poverty was not a punishment for sinfulness and neither was wealth the fruit of sanctity. If God is just, then his justice must make itself manifest in another life after death.

Pope Benedict XVI takes up this theme in his encyclical on Christian hope, Spe Salvi:

A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world....I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life....Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so.

As Christians, we have an even deeper understanding revealed to us by Jesus. The promise of everlasting life is a manifestation of God's love and desire to not lose anyone to death. As we hear in one of the suggested gospel readings for this coming Sunday: "And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day" (John 6:39). In Jesus, God reveals that his justice is not ultimately about what each of us deserves, whether good or bad, but about the loving mercy with which he desires to welcome us to the inheritance he has promised us through faith. God's mercy perfects his justice.


Pope Benedict XVI continues:

This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life.

Love, Love, Love

They will know we are Christians by our love.

Christians don't dress differently from others. We don't speak another language or wear our hair differently. We eat the same foods as everyone else. We are Christians because we strive to love as Jesus loved. Everything we do, from the simplest act of kindness to the bravest display of heroism, we seek to do with great love in imitation of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Just as importantly, we claim that nothing we do has any value unless it is done with love. Love makes all things pleasing to God. And so, we are meant to stand out from the crowd by our acts of love.

We have many names for God and many ways of describing him. We call him God the Almighty and Lord of Hosts. We call him our Creator. We describe him as just and merciful. In imitation of Jesus, we call him Father. But, the truest description of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ is that he is love. God loves the world and all the people he created. He loves each of us. It is a marvel beyond the capacity of our minds to grasp and our imaginations to perceive. The One who made everything, the One who holds all creation in his hands, the One who guides all of history knows each of us and loves each of us!

Because God is love, when we love one another we are imitating God. Furthermore, since we are created in God's image and likeness, we are most fully ourselves and most fully alive when we love. Through love, we are fulfilling God's will for us. When we love, we are keeping all of God's commandments.

When Jesus is asked in the gospel to single out the greatest commandment of the Law, he replies with a quote from the book of Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind". There is nothing new in this commandment. In fact, pious Jews recite it every day in their prayers. What Jesus does do which is new is that he connects this commandment with another commandment from the book of Leviticus, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Now, loving God and loving neighbor go hand in hand. We cannot claim to love God and, all the while, despise our neighbor. This theme is repeated in today's first reading from the book of Exodus. God tells the people that if they abuse the foreigner and the poor, he will surely hear their cry. Because God loves and protects them, he expects us to love and protect them as well. In Jesus, there is no separating the worship we bring to the Father from the love we show our brothers and sisters.

Jesus did something else which is totally new. Not only did he teach us that love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand, but he gave us the greatest example of love, an example of love which we are to follow. He gave his life to save us. As he told his disciples at the Last Supper, "There is no greater love than to give one's life for a friend." The love that Jesus teaches us to live is no warm feeling. It is a love which requires us to sacrifice ourselves for others. It is a love which compels us to act. It is the love of Saint Peter Claver who brought comfort to and fought for the release of slaves in the Americas. It is the love of Blessed Damien of Molokai who risked his health to serve lepers in Hawaii. It is the love of Saint Francis of Assisi who left all his possessions behind and the wealth of his father's house to be among the poor. It is the love of Mother Theresa who looked after the dying in the gutters of Calcutta. It is the love of Saint Maximilian Kolbe who, in a Nazi concentration camp, took the place of another man who was sentenced to death. We might not all be called upon to display such heroism. Most of us will show love in less dramatic and less costly ways. Nonetheless, when we love as Jesus loved we will be like him and bring his presence to those we meet.

Now, imagine what the world would be like if we were all like Jesus. What if we all loved one another and puts the needs of others before our own needs. Imagine if no one went to sleep at night until they were sure that everyone else had something to eat and a warm place to sleep. This is not just an exercise in wishful thinking. It is the commandment of Christ. It is what Jesus expects of us who would call ourselves Christians - that we love one another as he has loved us.

When in doubt....

A friend once told me, "When in doubt, quote Dorothy Day." And, when I've had doubts, the following quote from The Long Loneliness has given me a lot of comfort:

I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from the cross; and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church.

Render the Legal Tender

The oldest political trick in the book is to get your opponent to talk about anything except the issues. We have seen this many times over the past year. They bring up something a candidate's pastor once said. They question a candidate's commitment to his or her family. Rumors are started about possible shady business dealings. All this in hopes of getting the opponent to be on the defensive. Then the press will focus on the candidate's weaknesses rather than his or her strengths. Little by little, support for the candidate begins to diminish as he or she is required to talk about everything else except the issues.

This is a tactic which the enemies of Jesus tried often. We witness it again in Sunday's gospel(Mt.22:15-21). By asking him a question about whether or not Jews should pay taxes, they hoped to catch him in a trap. If Jesus said that Jews should pay taxes, he would lose support among his followers who opposed the Roman occupation of Israel. If he said they shouldn't pay taxes, then the religious leaders would have cause to report him to the Roman authorities as an insurrectionist. Whichever way Jesus answered, his enemies hoped that he would have to keep explaining himself, digging himself into a deeper hole and losing support among the people.

As usual, though, Jesus is far more clever than his adversaries. His answer has become one of the most quoted verses from the Bible: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; but give to God what belongs to God."

When we hear Jesus' words, we have to ask ourselves: What exactly belongs to Caesar? What do we owe to our government and to our fellow citizens? We have a responsibility to pay taxes and follow the laws. Being blessed to live in a democracy, we also have a responsibility to vote and to voice our opinion. Along with that, we must study the issues facing our society and form our consciences so that our opinions are based on sound logic and good moral principles. All these elements go into being good and responsible citizens. God expects that of us, especially as he has blessed us with a country which values freedom so highly.

Too often, however, Jesus' words, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's", are quoted by adversaries of the Church who try to tell us that religion has no place in political life. They are using that old political tactic of trying to keep us from talking about the issues. When they claim a wall of separation between Church and State, they hope that people of faith won't become involved in the national debate about abortion, homosexual marriage, the death penalty or stem cell research. They tell us that people of faith should keep their opinions to themselves. They dare to say that we have no right to voice our opinion because it is informed and motivated by faith. Sad to say, too often Christians have taken that criticism to heart and left their faith at the door when they entered the voting booth.

But, it is absolutely un-American to believe that someone has less of a freedom of speech because his or her ideas are informed and motivated by religious faith. As a country, we have fought to guarantee that each person have the freedom to voice their opinions no matter what their source or what their content. Should a person's beliefs and opinions be excluded because that person is a Catholic Christian? Why are the opinions of Catholics any different from the ideas proposed by environmentalists, animal rights supporters or business people? Like every other American, we have a right and a duty to witness to our faith even in the political arena.

And, the fact is that people of faith have always been a part of the political process in our country. In the last century, it was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a man of faith, who led the fight to guarantee civil rights for all people regardless of race. In the nineteenth century, people of faith were among those who stirred the conscience of our nation to recognize the evil of slavery. And, many of the drafters of the constitution and forefathers of the country were informed and motivated by their faith to make America a place of freedom and opportunity. In this century, it is up to us now to take up the cause of justice and to witness to the dignity of every human person no matter how weak or how vulnerable.

As a church, we must never endorse a political candidate or a political party. We can never fall into the trap of partisan politics. But, we do have a right and a duty to speak to the issues facing the society in which we live, work and raise our children. Because of our faith, we have much to offer. We have insights regarding the dignity of the human person, the sacredness of human life, the importance of the family and the role of government in protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens. As Pope John Paul II said so often, as a Church we do not seek to impose our views but to propose them to society, to enrich the debate through the witness of our faith.

Governments come and go. Political leaders come and go. But, God's word endures forever. The Church has survived numerous governments, both good and bad, from the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, through Nazism and Communism to the present day. As a community of faith we have a treasury of wisdom built up over those many centuries which we must share with the people of our day and use to strengthen our society. Let us pray that we will have the courage to speak the truth of the gospel in this election season and pray also for our leaders that they may be inspired by a vision of justice that will lead us to true peace.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

The news is alarming. Credit markets around the world are frozen! Temperatures are rising, threatening widespread famine! Americans are sharply divided about important issues! We are losing our prestige around the world! Tom Brady is out for the season!

We have to go all the way back to the Great Depression to find a time when Americans were so pessimistic.

The world is changed forever, and we are learning how to adapt.

At the time when Isaiah was writing down his prophecies, the world was also changing dramatically. It was the dawn of the Persian empire led by Cyrus. After defeating the Babylonians who had held the people of Israel captive, Cyrus commands that they be repatriated to Israel and that the temple be rebuilt. Cyrus is a pagan king who worshipped many gods. Nonetheless, God calls him "his anointed", or "Messiah". Imagine, a pagan king being called "Messiah"! Through the prophet, God is letting his people know that he alone controls the destiny of all nations. Even pagan kings do his bidding though they know it not. He is the Lord of history, controlling the world's events. "I am the Lord; there is no other."

For this reason, Jesus can so easily dismiss the question about the census tax. As the eternal Son of God, Jesus has seen many kings and their empires come and go. All of them were brought to stand before his judgment seat at their death. Jesus knew that Caesar and his empire were no threat to the kingship of God. Political powers, armies and economies are all temporary, but God reigns as king forever. He is Lord; there is no other.

The children's song says it best, "He has the whole world in his hands." God is in control.

Most of the issues we feel so strongly about today will be trivial tomorrow. Would any of us know or care about Cyrus, who was the most powerful man of his day, if his name didn't appear in Scripture? And, a thousand years from now, only the nerdiest history student will know about the United States and who George Bush was. Yet, the Church will still be preaching Christ Crucified, will still be serving the poor, and the newspapers (if they still exist) will continue writing about how the Church is in crisis. And, God willing, we will be enjoying our heavenly inheritance!

Believers are not equipped by God to solve all the world's problems. Neither may we stand by idly as our neighbors suffer. Whatever the case, we do not have to succumb to fatalism or depression. As Saint Paul writes, we prove our faith by "laboring in love and showing constancy in hope." That hope is rooted in our conviction that a loving God is directing the course of world events. He is the Lord; there is no other.

Saint Antoninus of Florence, pray for us!

If you are wondering whose intercession to seek during this global financial crisis, I have a suggestion - Saint Antoninus of Florence.

Serving as bishop of Florence in the 15th century, he was known as a tireless reformer. Concerned about the worldliness of his priests, he would often pay them unexpected visits to make sure their breviary ribbons were on the correct date and, in some extreme cases, to even cut their hair and scrub the make-up off their faces (yikes!).

His passion for justice did not end with his priests. Florence at the time was a center of political and financial power, and Saint Antoninus was quick to point out the evils of usury, that is, of charging interest on a loan. The Church was still working through reconciling the Scriptural prohibition against charging interest with the economic realities of the emerging merchant class. In his very influential treatise on moral theology, Saint Antoninus provided helpful guidelines to determine when interest on a loan was appropriate and when it was unjust. Rather than just pointing fingers at the problem, he sought to work out a way forward that would both promote economic growth and protect the poor. We could certainly benefit from someone of his wisdom and insight today!

So, when we open up our 401(k) statement or fear for our job security in these days of tightening credit, instead of cursing we can now cry out - LITTLE ANTHONY OF FLORENCE, PRAY FOR US!