As a Catholic on Good Friday, I have been thinking of life and death. We contemplate the death of our Lord Jesus before His glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Death precedes eternal life. So we should think more about death than we do. Death is something we are afraid of and something we must all face.
We downplay it by avoiding talking about it and pretending everyone goes to Heaven or into the ground for the unbelievers.
No one wants to hear about Hell.
But to avoid Hell, one must die right.
(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_03/crucifictionL1603_468x650.jpg)
That’s right–contrary to popular opinion, it is not how you live, but how you die.
Don’t get me wrong. How one lives helps prepare for one’s death. But one could live a very good life but then die in a state of sin, leading to damnation. Or one could live in an immoral way and then repent on one’s deathbed.
The point is that the decision to have eternal life or eternal damnation is made by the individual at the moment of death. Everything we do leads up to the big moment, one that can only be made once and only at the moment of death.
That is a very important couple of minutes. But we rarely hear about preparing for this moment–even from our priests. We hear about compassion and forgiveness and love and peace, all of which are wonderful. But we don’t get taught how to be ready to choose life.
And many “normal” people choose poorly because they don’t know better. They figure there is no choice and that they just go to Heaven.
Not recognizing the reality of Hell does not negate its existence. And to avoid choosing Hell–and no one thinks he would ever make such a choice–one must be ready to let go of attachment to sin.
People don’t even believe in sin these days, let alone Hell, so you can see the problem of making the choice to be with God.
If one takes God for granted, and embraces his will over God’s, and sin over virtue, then one can very well choose poorly. Let’s say one is living in an adulterous relationship and one refuses to let go of one’s lover at the time of death, then how is that person supposed to choose God?
Likewise, if one will not repent of a sin–such as abortion–and refuses to admit wrongdoing, how can that person accept God’s forgiveness and mercy? That sounds like pride and that is the worst sin of all.
As we approach the joy of Easter, I write this to encourage us to focus not just on the joys of life but the scary choice at death. We need to live every day as if it is our last. And we need to prepare ourselves for the four last things–Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.
Prepare and repent! Good Friday to you!
Tags: Catholic Church, Culture, Prayer, Religion
12/16/2011 at 9:38 am |
[...] pray he repented and turned to God in his final moments. As I have previously posted, it is less how you live than how you [...]