Passage to life

Phil Bosmans, a very famous spiritual writer, noted: "Some things may seem as a catastrophe, and nevertheless, they are a grace." Writing this, he may have thought about those who think that death is the end of life. I believe and I feel that, even among Christians, dying has not yet been understood in its depth - as a new birth, which Jesus is talking about. As mortal men, we meditate on this theme of death mostly in the beginning of the month of November.

At this time of the year, we remember our departed. Tombs are freshly decorated. For a short time, the living and the dead live on the same plane. They seek each other, but they cannot reach each other. A cruel wall separates the ones from the others. The living mourn the dead and, I believe, the dead mourn even more the living who do not live their lives in fullness, although they breath, possess, eat, walk...

It is good if the living meditate on the hour of their death. Nevertheless, some may be surprised by this hour like by like a thief: it is a catastrophe if they have forgotten the council to remain awake and to be on their guard. Carried away by the pleasures of this life, they in fact loose their life. According to the words of a theologian, death is "a most excellent troublemaker". Yes. Exactly that. Death enters into every pleasure and says: Enough! It undermines every security, which is not founded in God. Fundamentally, this is what I think while meditating on death - if there was not death, it would not be worthwhile to live. If there was not death, it would not be meritorious to support the temptations and the crosses of life.

But death as a state is not permanent. As Christians, we have to see it as a birth, as a new beginning. It is the passage from the struggle for the existence to a space where every tear will be wiped from our face. This is why we can understand St. Paul's jubilation about death as a gain. We can more easily understand the imaginings of St. Francis who called death his little sister.

Fra Mario Knezovic