Preparing for Death

Earlier this week a good friend texted me to tell me that her 81 year-old mother had just asked her "How do you prepare for death?" Since I'm good friends with both of them, I figured that I'd write a response even though no one had asked me to. Below is the letter I wrote to the mom who had asked the question.

Dear Mrs. ___________,

A few days ago your daughter passed on to me a question that you had asked her, about how a person prepares for death. Naturally, at age 81 you and I start to think seriously about this question. So, I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts about preparing for death.

First, I try to remember that, as Jesus says in one of his parables, we really spend our whole lives in expectation that the Lord will come “at an hour we least expect.“ In one parable, he says that if the master returns and finds the servant doing what the master had asked him to do, then the servant will be rewarded. So one way for me to prepare for death is to just live my life following Jesus’ example and his commands: loving all those that God puts in my life every day. If I d0 that, then I’ll be prepared whenever the Master decides to come.

I’m finding that there is also a more immediate preparation for death. All of the saints seem to refer to their relationship to the Lord as “friendship,” as a close, intimate relationship with the Lord. This isn’t based on just “saying prayers,“ but on having back-and-forth conversations with him in which I let him know my inmost hopes and fears, my pains and my pleasures. Of course he knows these already, but I’m telling them to him because this is what you do in a close friendship: you leave yourself vulnerable and open to the beloved’s responses. It builds a closer relationship with the Lord.

I’m preparing for death, too, by trying to become aware of all the ways in which the Lord

communicates with me every day: in a beautiful sunset, for instance, or in a kind deed someone does for me, or in a verse of Scripture that touches my heart in a special way. God is always communicating with me, so I’m trying to get better at watching for his loving actions in my life.

It’s also important for me to be careful of my idea of God. Jesus came to reveal to us that God is a “father“ who loves me unconditionally just the way I am. He is not the vengeful, spiteful executioner, who seems determined to keep people out of heaven. Unfortunately, many of us have been introduced to that God, so it takes effort to get rid of that idea, and replace it with Jesus’s idea of God as an all-loving Father, like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. That is, after all, the God that Jesus came to reveal to us. 

So, as I start to prepare for death, I am preparing to meet this God, who loves me infinitely, and who has been giving me gifts every day of my life, a God who can’t wait to meet me face to face, and so I am starting to look forward to meeting him as well. 

Well, these are just a few of my own personal answers to your question. Let us keep praying for one another as we try to get ready!

Love,

Fr. Albert