November is the month dedicated to the deceased. During this period cemeteries are flooded with people mourning their loved ones. Graves are practically covered with candles and floral bouquets. Many feel the need to go on the graves of their families and friends as if to celebrate their love and respect for them that certainly increased with time.

Death is the greatest and most baffling of life’s many mysteries. Its shocking reality rocks our zest for life. How come that we have to face death? Especially when we work so hard to succeed in what we do? How is it possible that human life, with all its dreams and failures, ends abruptly? Death is an insult to our human dignity. Irrespective of our religious convictions or beliefs, we feel deeply hurt by its ruthlessness. Death separates us from trusted friends and colleagues. In a way it discourages our strenuous efforts to develop and be successful.

Death makes it clear that next to our name there is a hidden yet very obvious surname added: limited! Whether we accept it or not we are all limited. The diseases we contract, the medical conditions we suffer when we are ill as well as the difficult physical and psychological state of old age all point how restricted we in fact are. Moreover, the funerals we attend are a vivid and outright proclamation that limitedness is our bread and butter.

Confronted with the shocking reality of death, people react differently.

Some just try to ignore it by not mentioning it at all in their conversations. For them death is a subject that one should never talk about. Others have become so traumatised by it that they ended up being obsessed with it. Unfortunately, they choose to live their lives in total mourning instead of regarding what is occurring to them as life’s precious unsurpassed gift. Their self-inflicted negativity and pessimistic approach to life becomes their own way of meeting and dealing with weakened temporality. Thus, for them, life becomes an ongoing death symphony.

Throughout the ages various sages developed various understandings and perspectives on death. The greatest of ancient Greek poets, Homer, was so terrified of death that he openly confessed in the ‘Iliad’: “Better to flee from death than feel its grip”. August Strindberg, in The Dance of Death, put it plainly − “death doesn’t bargain”. The mystery of death and dying is so appalling for some that they do all they can to ignore it altogether until the time comes when they have to face it squarely. Dean Koontz in The Husband writes: “A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most people live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting by their bedside”. When there is no way out of bypassing death what happens? The German poet, playwright and theatre director, Bertolt Brecht, opens an important door in The Mother: “Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life”.

This German author is simply saying that death cannot be seen on its own merits. In order to be complete, death has to be necessarily viewed in relation to life. But what kind of life are we talking about?

Biologically, human life has a fixed point from which it ceases to exist. Thanks to Saint John, the Christian vision of death is richer than the modern day nihilistic philosophical trends. The fourth evangelist offers two different words for life. ‘Bios’ meaning biological life and ‘zoe,’ which is supernatural life. The latter gives power over nature through miracles, over sin and selfishness by agape (self-giving love) and over death by resurrection. That is why Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11: 25-26).

For those who love Christ death is the ‘dies natalis’, the definitive birth, to immortal life.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

SAN GWANN