Francis stressed that “the Christian faith is not a way of exorcising the fear of death; rather, it helps us to face it.”
Vatican City (10/02/2022 10:39 AM, Gaudium Press) During the General Audience on Wednesday, February 9, Pope Francis delved into the devotion to St. Joseph as the patron saint of a good death. The pontiff recalled that the origin of this devotion lies in the belief that St Joseph died alongside Our Lady and Jesus, although there is no historical data on this.
“We try in every way to banish the thought of our finite existence”
Francis said that although the culture of ‘well-being’ seeks to erase the reality of death, “the coronavirus pandemic has brought it back into focus in a dramatic way. It was terrible: death was everywhere, and so many brothers and sisters lost loved ones without being able to be near them, and this made death even harder to accept and process.”
According to the Holy Father, “we try in every way to banish the thought of our finite existence, deluding ourselves into believing we can remove the power of death and dispel fear. But the Christian faith is not a way of exorcising the fear of death; rather, it helps us to face it. Sooner or later, we will all pass through that door.”
“I have never seen a moving truck behind a hearse”
The pontiff reminds us that “it is only through faith in resurrection that we can face the abyss of death without being overwhelmed by fear. Not only that: we can restore a positive role to death. Indeed, thinking about death, enlightened by the mystery of Christ, helps us to look at all of life through fresh eyes.”
“We will go alone, with nothing in the pockets of our shroud: nothing. Because the shroud has no pockets. This solitude of death: it is true, I have never seen a hearse followed by a removals van. It makes no sense to accumulate if one day we will die. What we must accumulate is love, and the ability to share, the ability not to remain indifferent when faced with the needs of others,” he advised.
The Pope highlighted two considerations about the Christian view on death. “we cannot avoid death, and precisely for this reason, after having done everything that is humanly possible to cure the sick, it is immoral to engage in futile treatment.“
The second concerns the quality of death itself, of pain, of suffering. “We must be grateful for all the help that medicine endeavours to give, so that through so-called ‘palliative care’, every person who is preparing to live the last stretch of their life can do so in the most human way possible. However, we must be careful not to confuse this help with unacceptable drifts towards killing. We must accompany people towards death, but not provoke death or facilitate any form of suicide.“
“May Saint Joseph help us to live the mystery of death in the best possible way. For a Christian, the good death is an experience of the mercy of God, who comes close to us even in that last moment of our life,” he concluded. (EPC)
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
