“God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.” 

 

We heard these words in the first reading at Mass last Sunday. They were taken from the Book of Wisdom (1:13). And the spiritual realities that they lead us to ponder are indeed part of real wisdom.

 

It seems out of place for us to stop in the week leading up to the Fourth of July, the height of vacation season, to think about death. That’s especially the case because our culture, our time and place in history, makes every effort to look away from this inevitable consequence of being born.

 

We need to recognize that we are living in a moment when society and even our civil leadership is rooted in a focus on this world only. Consider how driven we are by an economic vision that has distorted freedom into an excessive materialism. We are bombarded with advertising geared to stir up within us desires for earthly goods that we often don’t need, or which keep us from living simply.

 

Combined with the sexual revolution and the search for pleasure, we are tempted to focus on ourselves and so to stress individualism. Consequently, we live only for today or for the short term, with no thought or hope of the future.

 

No wonder then, the very thought of death has become so fearful. If we live so much for today we lose the hope for life beyond death, and for eternal life with Christ.

 

It is precisely for this reason that our Catholic faith is such a blessing and a consolation in the face of the reality that one day each of us will die. 

 

Our faith gives us balance, comfort, and solid hope as we face the continuing encounter with death in the passing of family members and friends throughout life. The words of the Scriptures, both the New and the Old Testaments, as well as the teaching of Christ and His Church also help us to keep our own death constantly before our eyes, but in a way that is healthy and balanced.

 

That passage from the Book of Wisdom reminds us, for example, that the very reality of death was allowed but not willed by God. The Book of Genesis tells us that God made all things good. At the beginning, we are told that our first parents were so familiar with God in their sinlessness that they walked with Him in the cool of the evening. Truly, God did not make death.

 

However, the sin of Adam and Eve changed all of that. They ruptured our friendship with God and as a consequence death entered the world.

 

But in the greatness of God, death has now become for us not simply a feared moment leading to extinction from all we have been and have done in life. It has been transformed into the door to life without death. And Christ has given us the path through that door, and has even gone first. Our task now is to live faithfully and to prepare for that moment.

 

Of course we still feel the natural fear and sorrow that comes from dying. That is part of the damage of sin that we bear. But our Catholic faith, including the worthy reception of the sacraments, gives us the grace to prepare for that moment.

 

Our faith’s moral guidance for our lives widens our understanding of ourselves and of reality. It shows us that we bear a great dignity because every choice in this life, be it big or small, is part of our road through death to life.

 

If we choose well in this life, loving Christ and our brothers and sisters, we can joyfully say with St. Paul, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55). Christ gives us the grace and every help to face death with serenity and peace. That is because we know He is waiting for us.