Our faith may make dying more difficult than we think

As a priest, I have encountered death in many of my parishioners.  Most of the time, I only get to know them either when they are very ill and close to dying, or only after their death, when their next-of-kin requests a Catholic funeral for their loved one.  Very rarely have I been privileged to journey intimately with a person who had been progressively weakened, where his or her body shows signs of breakdown, and finally, when the person is at death’s door, there is a revelation of a struggle and a general resistance to let go of life.  I have been there at those dying moments, but if I had not journeyed with the person in the months or weeks leading up to that point of death, nothing much is revealed to me (or the family or the caregivers) of what goes on in the heart and mind of a disciple of Christ at the moment of death. 

So I was intrigued when I came across an article written years ago by Fr Rolheiser about the death of Fr Henri Nouwen’s own mother and how when he had great expectations of his deeply faith-filled mother accepting and welcoming death when she was dying, that instead of finding a woman who was happy to embrace death and be moments away from meeting her maker, was instead someone who showed much resistance, fear and a sense of atheism that baffled him. 

Ideally, a mature faith should lead one to be at peace at life’s edge when one comes to it.  Even St Francis of Assisi called death ‘sister death’, giving it such an intimate title and an image that is far from frightening and something that we should resist.  Yet, how many believing Christians who are death’s door are really that accepting and happy to die?  Do any of us harbour the secret wish to die like Jesus, and have ever prayed to be given that grace to imitate Our Lord in his moment of glory?  Perhaps this is where we may have got it wrong.  If we are clear about scripture and what it reveals to us about Jesus’ dying moments, it was not a ‘happy’ moment, but in fact, a time that was somewhat filled with uncertainty as he mouthed out “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me”.  Jesus did not run to the Cross, nor did he make it disappear when it came time for him to die.  I believe that he struggled too.  He loved his humanity even though he was God, and therein lays the struggle. 

If Jesus was a God-Man and he didn’t embrace the suffering and death in a courageous way that showed an unflinching brave front to the world, how much more would we mere mortals even though we may think we have a mature and developed faith? 

This may be what mystics describe the struggle within as the ‘dark night of faith’.  It’s not an altogether bad thing, but it bears explanation.  When one is so convinced of the promise of the afterlife, one can also experience at that split moment an overwhelming presence of God that denies all of one’s feelings and sentiments and emotions and consolations at the thought of God, be it a God of mercy or a God of love.  God becomes too large for one’s heart and one’s universe that one cannot for a moment imagine God’s existence. 

I was intrigued when I came across this meditation.  It appears that for some souls, God’s intention for the person who has loved him for all his or her life, is that this moment of being brought to life’s edge becomes the last chance or opportunity to really submit to God in total faith, without the grace of any good feeling or sentimentality.  Instead, some mystics have reached this point in their lives when all they could do is to see themselves as terrible sinners in need to God’s mercy, but no consolation was given.  It was an invitation to truly leap into faith and this has to be something so fearful and frightening. 

At this point, what the person had all along been thinking was faith becomes something that he or she questions, and this gives rise to the doubt that could fill one’s heart at the ‘hour of our death’.  This is where we really need the prayers and presence of Our Blessed Mother, to guide us on our way in true faith.

But if we really have made that secret desire to follow Christ right to the end, we will also know that his final words were that of a loving submission of his life into his Father’s hands.  The struggle was there before that, but it came to a very difficult and perhaps even painful resolve to commit his spirit to the Father.  I’m not even sure if we can call this a consolation that he was given, because I am sure that it didn’t feel good to die at that point.  There was nothing that felt good about Good Friday.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer each time, don’t we also ask that God does not put us to the test?  What is the ultimate test but the test of our faith in a God of love, a test that wants us to go beyond our feelings, emotions, sentiments and moods?  It is a test of final and total submission.    In the light of this reflection, it will also be a test of undergoing the dark night of doubt. 

It shouldn’t surprise us that our deep faith (or what we think is deep) can also become something that brings us to the edge of dark doubt, but we are led by the hand of God which we are unable to see, intuit or sense in any way, shape or form.