Episode Transcript  

One

Not Natural

It’s one of the great certainties that we’re all going to die. It’s so certain, and so universal, that we’re tempted to think of death as natural. But death isn’t natural. It’s not something that belongs to us by nature. It’s not something that’s part of our original design. If it were, we’d have no problem with it. We’d chat about it cheerfully and look forward to it like we look forward to all the other things which perfect our nature (food, marriage and family, friendship, knowledge, beauty, etc).

But obviously, that’s not how it works. Death scares us, cemeteries and corpses make our skin crawl, and the thought of ourselves or a loved one in a casket is profoundly disturbing. This is because death wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s an effect of original sin, perhaps the most vivid. It’s an unnatural fact. But by God’s grace, it’s an unnatural fact that now has supernatural value.

Two

Separation of Soul and Body

We are made up of two parts: body and soul. That’s what a human being is, the union of body and soul. The way a rosary is the combination of beads and string. How would you destroy a rosary? By separating the beads and the string. Then the Rosary would be gone, but you’d still have string over here and beads over there, and if you wanted, you could put the Rosary back together again by restringing the beads.

Something similar happens at death. The body and soul are separated, and the human being is destroyed. But the soul remains, and the body remains. The matter remains, though it's dispersed. It might become part of soil, plants, or other organisms. The soul and body are not together anymore.

But one day, they’ll be put back together, at the end of the world, the final judgment. Really, you can think of this life as body and soul racing together towards heaven. And the faster the soul runs, the slower the body runs. Until, eventually, the body turns to the soul and says, “You go ahead without me. I’ll catch up with you at the end.” Then they shake hands, and the soul sprints ahead, and the body lies down to rest a while.

Three

The Solidification of the Soul

So death means the separation of the soul and the body. But it also means the solidification of the soul’s character. Think, for example, of your favorite coffee mug. It starts out as clay, which can be bent and twisted into any shape it wants. But as long as it’s as flexible and inconsistent as that, it has no definite shape, and it can’t hold your coffee. So it has to be baked, and the moisture, which makes it changeable, has to be removed from it so that it can become solid and definite.

That’s kind of like a soul’s character. When it’s connected to the body, it can change and shift. Our character is very unreliable and indefinite in this life. Gradually, we try to shape our character into the shape we want it to be. And at death, we bake the clay, and we can finally rest in the shape we have chosen for ourselves.

In that sense, death is a gift. It gives our character completion. It lets us be, finally, the person we want to be. Without death, we would be like a potter who was constantly shaping the clay, but never produced a mug, a vase, or anything anyone could ever use. We’d be like a novel we never finished writing. We’d be like a guitarist or violinist who was forever tuning his instrument, but never actually played it.

Death brings us to completion. It’s our chance to finish making what we are, so we can finally begin to enjoy ourselves by finally doing what we were actually made to do. And that is, rejoice with God and the angels and the saints for all eternity.

Four

Birth into Eternity

God is so gracious in giving us a kind of foreshadowing of death at the beginning of our lives. Because we all start out in the very small world of our mothers’ wombs. And we detect so little in there, and we don’t understand anything, but we’re just there, getting ready for the transition. And then the time comes, and everything changes. Light, and sound, and love, and real food, and speech and reason and beauty. That’s what happened when our short life in the womb ended, and we were born into this life. And we’re going to do the same thing again. This short life will end, and we will be born again into the world of angels and saints and glory.

In Heaven, there will be more light, and more music, and more love, and more truth, and more beauty, and vastly more experiences. We can’t imagine Heaven now, just like a baby in the womb can’t imagine the greatness of life outside it. That’s why, to a Christian, death isn’t scary. It’s exciting. And we face it with an eager joy.

Five

The Achievement of Death

Death is where we become who we’ve always wanted to be. It’s where we, as Christians, enter into the fantastical realm of God. And to add to the excitement, you never know for sure when it’s coming. You don’t control when you die, and you don’t control how you die. And your death isn’t just something that happens to you. It’s something we do, something you achieve. Just like Christ’s death on the cross was the greatest achievement of His life, so does our death in Christ become the greatest achievement of our lives.

When great artists or athletes have the opportunity to make a masterpiece or win the ultimate prize, they sometimes say, “My life has been leading up to this moment.” Well, when a Christian faces death, he says, “My life has been leading up to this moment.”

What is the single best way to bring your life to completion? Meditate on the Word of God every day in the School of Mary through the Rosary. Always end your meditation with a resolution: one concrete good action you will practice that day. Because we do not grow in love by good insights alone. We grow in love by practicing good actions every day.

St. John of the Cross said, “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love.” And this is how we cooperate with grace and bring our lives to completion: one meditation, one resolution, one concrete act of love at a time.

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