How should I face the fact of dying?
“Always, forever! Words brought to our lips by the human desire to prolong - to make eternal - what is pleasant.
Lying words, on earth, where everything must end."
We are wayfarers. Therefore, while treading firmly on the ground, we should always keep our gaze set firmly on the goal of our journey, on our Father God.
“Death comes, St. Josemaría wrote, and cannot be avoided. What empty vanity it is, then, to center our existence on this life. See how many men and women suffer. Some suffer because life is coming to an end, and it pains them to leave it; others because it goes on, and they are sick of it. In neither case is there room for the mistaken view that makes our passage through this world an end in itself."
“One must leave that way of thinking behind and anchor oneself to another, an eternal one. A total change is required, to empty oneself of self-centered motives, which pass away, and to be renewed in eternal Christ."
We prepare for our definitive meeting with God by practicing detachment from everything.
Jesus vividly describes the rich man's abundance of possessions, with which he could have done so much good. But the man was foolish and set his heart on his riches. Take your ease, he told himself, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"
The lesson is clear: we have to be detached from material possessions, ready to render an account to God whenever he calls us.
Nothing we enjoy here will accompany us to the grave. “Don't set your heart on loves here below. -Such loves are selfish... Those whom you love will recoil from you, in horror and disgust, within hours of God calling you to his presence. -Elsewhere are the loves that endure."
Since we will enter God's presence empty-handed, why do we latch on to things? They are a dead weight, an obstacle on our journey. In the end, we'll have to abandon them anyway. Before God, only our good deeds have any value.
Therefore, we want to be completely detached from everything on earth. St. Josemaría taught us how we should prepare for this decisive moment: “You were consoled by the idea that life is to be spent, burned in the service of God. And spending ourselves entirely for him is how we shall be freed from death, which brings us the possession of Life."
If we are faithful, death will bring us complete happiness, but we should seek to die old, after a long life working for God.
“Have you heard how sadly the worldly-minded lament that, 'Each day that passes is to die a little’?
Well, I say to you: rejoice, apostolic soul, because each day that passes brings you closer to Life."
For the children of God, for those who trust in the mercy of their Father in heaven, death is the definitive, long-awaited meeting with our Lord and his Blessed Mother.
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