An Easy Church To Die In
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Wednesday, October 06, 2010 5:00 PM
I attended the funeral of an old friend yesterday.
He died with the sacraments, and by all accounts seems to have found in the approach of death a peace and joy that eluded him in life, which is great consolation.
But I wasn’t envying the priest who would have to give a homily at such a funeral.
My friend’s survivors seem to have difficult relations with the Church, some of them almost certainly exacerbated by his shortcomings. His was a sensitive and noble soul, but also a troubled one—not always the best example of the Faith he loved profoundly.
Father preached about Authority, an odd choice it seemed to me at first—but then a brilliant one.
He cited an anecdote about a simple believer’s repudiation of an atheist’s complicated objections to various facets of moral teaching:
“The Church can be hard to live in, but it’s an easy place to die.”
Meaning: the same Authority that can sting our consciences so completely when we wish to live on our own terms—
the same Authority, perhaps, whose officials and loudest apologists can let us down profoundly—
it is that same Authority the Church wields to absolve us as we approach death, to bring us to Jesus through Anointing and the Eucharist, and which insists in its prayer to Christ after we have passed that we should be allowed into heaven.
In the words of the Extraordinary Form (which was the form this funeral Mass took), the Church begs Jesus not to forget that his entire Passion & Death was for the sake of the soul now departed—and that great labor should not be in vain.
Whatever our struggles and doubts here on earth, when the end comes, we will not be wishing the Church had less authority, but very grateful to call on every power it is hers to command.
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