When Death Is Knocking at the Door

April 19 was Pope Benedict XVI’s birthday. He celebrated it privately with a Mass attended by his brother and his closest collaborators. The homily was very personal and moved those present, because in it he admitted that the last phase of his life has begun:

“I am facing the final stretch of the journey of my life, and I do not know what awaits me. I do know, however, that the light of God is there, that He is risen, that His light is stronger than any darkness, and that God’s goodness is stronger than all the evils of this world. And this helps me to go forward with confidence. It helps us to keep going, and at this hour I thank from my heart all those who continually allow me to perceive God’s ‘yes’ through their faith,” the Pope said.

A man who is turning 85 knows perfectly well that his end on this earth is approaching. And through his words you can see how he is preparing his “final stretch of life” to meet that “light and goodness of God” which is beyond description. I have always said that it is a very great grace when a person knows that death is knocking at their door and can use those days, months or years to prepare as well as possible for the passage to the other life. For those of us who have faith, who were raised in the faith and live by faith, thinking about our own death, or the death of a loved one, is less difficult (because it will never be easy). For those who have no faith, I suppose it is somewhat more complicated.

A friend told me that her father had cancer for five years. Throughout that time he was very close to God (he was a man of deep faith). At the end of his illness, when he knew death was very near, he sat down by the telephone and began calling all his friends who lived in the interior of the country and said goodbye to them one by one, “with a calm and a peace I can’t explain to you,” she told me.

Some weeks ago a very close friend gave birth prematurely to a baby girl weighing barely 500 grams. The little one is in delicate condition, and her 10-year-old sister asked her friends to please pray for her to get better; but she also told them that if her little sister died, they would be happy too, because they would have the first saint in their family. She said this with impressive peace and certainty, which is undoubtedly what her parents have passed on to her (in spite of the immense pain they may be feeling).

Another story that moves me is that of the daughter of other friends (a family of great faith), who at 12 caught a virus that became complicated. On her deathbed, with exemplary composure, the girl asked her parents to bring her a priest, because she knew she was about to die.

The conclusion is that death will knock at our door sooner or later. And in this country all the more so, because it can find us in the street while we are young and in perfect health. In Venezuela, death has become daily news, so it is vital that, just as we talk about life and our plans, we also talk about death in our families, as naturally as can be, because in this way we can live facing it and facing God. In this way we can prepare ourselves, and our children or grandchildren, for that encounter.

As the saying goes, “You die as you live.” And if we live facing God, facing our neighbor and facing Goodness and Truth, we will be able to meet death more wisely, with the strength and grace that God himself will take care to give us.

That way we will know how to open the door, with the greatest peace and joy, even if we are suffering a great deal outwardly and inwardly. Because we Christians know that the best thing that can happen to us is to reach Heaven and find there the eternal happiness that nothing and no one on this earth can give us.