What Death Does

Praying for a good death to bring conciliation

04/08/2017

John 11:45-56 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, "What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish." He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to kill him.

          All parents desire desperately that their children would not fight or argue but rather live together in peace. Funny, that’s exactly what children want most of their parents: that mom and dad not argue or fight but live together in love. But sadly, it’s all too true that “no one fights like family,” and the deepest divisions are among those who have been the closest, those who “have nursed at the same breast.” Sometimes, the only times siblings get together is when a parent dies. At least for the funeral they put aside their petty differences, and pray for the dead. The more funeral Masses I celebrate, the more I see this almost healing effect of death: a parent’s death brings his or her children together, even if only for the funeral.

          Do you remember the funeral of Pope St. John Paul II? The whole world gathered at the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their final respects, even dignitaries of countries and kingdoms at war, and the line stretched all the way down that grand avenue leading from the Tiber River to the Vatican called “Via della Conciliazione” which means, “The Road of Conciliation.” The Holy Father of the whole world for a fleeting few days saw all his children in one place and not fighting. Death does that. There’s a lovely stained glass window at St. Boniface Church here in Fort Smith (and also at St. Edward in Little Rock) that depicts the death of St. Joseph. A Scripture quotation below it reads: “Blessed are those who die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13). One of those “blessings” of death is the healing of filial feuds that afflict all families. In the Catholic tradition, we are taught to pray for “a good death,” like that of St. Joseph.

          In the gospel today, the high priest Caiaphas prophesies how Jesus’ death will also be a good death, indeed, like no other death. He chides his brothers in the Sanhedrin, saying, “You know nothing, nor do you consider that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”  St. John goes on to explain further what Caiaphas meant, adding, “He prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” In other words, like John Paul II, God also wants to see the whole world – his children – live in peace, and God knows that somehow only death does that. Quite by accident, Caiaphas gave voice to the heart of God, who wants the world to walk down the “via della conciliazione” to behold his Son’s death that the world may be one, unfeuding family.

          My friends, no one likes to think about death, especially our own death, but we have to. I tell people, “Look, no one is getting out of here alive!” And lots of voices tell us how to think about death. Shakespeare’s Hamlet opined, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” and the thought of death paralyzed him into inaction. The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, urged, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” but rather he said: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The American poet, William Cullen Bryant, wrote more gently, “By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, / Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch / About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams” (Bryant, “Thanatopsis”). And in the movie “Star Trek,” Admiral James T. Kirk tells a rookie captain who failed a training test, “How we think about death is at least as important as how we think about life.”

          But we Christians should see death not as a purely personal event, but also as a prophetic event, that is, our death should resemble the death of Jesus. Therefore pray that your death will be a moment of peace for your family (and for the family of the world), where filial feuds are set aside, and siblings walk down the “via della conciliazione” as they pay their final respects to you. “Blessed are those who die in the Lord.” Why? Well, because when we die “in the Lord” (in God’s grace) our death, too, will have a “healing effect” and help the world live in peace. That’s what death does.

          Praised be Jesus Christ!