A Happy Death
As yesterday was All Souls’ Day, we’re going to take a look today at death. Not a long look, and hopefully not a fearful or depressing look at death. But there’s something we need to figure out so we can best prepare for this last great milestone in our lives.
We’ve all heard about praying for a “happy death.” But what exactly does that mean?
There are basically two types of death, just as there are two possible destinations after that death. There is the happy death, and then, not surprisingly, there’s the unhappy death.
At first sight, this might surprise us. Surely, you might think, all deaths are unhappy. Death is associated with pain, severe discomfort, violence, negligence, disease, accidents, loneliness, fear—there seems to be nothing about death that we can actually look forward to. So what’s this ‘happy death’ we keep hearing about? If we really have a hard time imagining what makes a death happy, then we’re missing something pretty basic. So let’s push that imagination a bit, let’s imagine in our mind’s eye what it will be like to be lying on our deathbed, perhaps alone, or perhaps with our family gathered around us—it doesn’t matter, they’re not coming with us when we go. So we face death and our thoughts turn to how we’ve lived our life and what we anticipate will happen next. We wonder how that little matter of our judgment will go, and what we should expect for the everlasting life of our immortal soul. It’s at this point that we’re faced not only with the reality of that eternity we’re about to enter into, but the emotions that reality brings us. Does it make us happy? Or does it make us terrified?
All those choices we made during our life now come back to haunt us. Why, oh why, did we choose to miss Mass on Sunday or dishonour our parents, what on earth made us think that we could find happiness by divorcing our spouse and then remarrying, or that amassing a great fortune could ever bring us peace of mind and tranquillity of spirit? Why did we cheat our way to success and power, why did we act with such heartlessness to our subordinates, to our spouse, to perfect strangers? We have all done bad things, and on our deathbed we will realize that we are not worthy to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Nevertheless, in spite of our sins, we have the blessed assurance from God that if we have repented, if we have truly been sorry for our bad thoughts and words and deeds and omissions, if we have received absolution for all that and resolved no longer to offend God, then we can relax on that deathbed and peacefully recognize that we are forgiven and can now rely on God’s mercy. We can, in other words, have a happy death, a death that fills us with hope rather than fear, and with peace rather than panic.
Even if we have not repented, if we haven’t been to confession perhaps for many years, even if we’ve been enjoying our sins right up to the moment we were confined to this deathbed, we still have one last chance to turn our newly found fear into something productive and beneficial before we’re dead. We can turn to God and humbly acknowledge our sins, begging him for mercy and forgiveness. It’s not over till it’s over, and God will welcome back his prodigal son, even at this last moment of our life. We have sinned, perhaps our whole life has been one of depravity and wickedness, but God’s infinite mercy is still ours for the asking, his Sacred Heart filled still with love for us as we breathe his holy Name in our last moments. Even now, we can enjoy a happy death. This is why we pray for sinners, now and especially at the hour of their death. It is why a priest is always ready to come to the bedside of a dying man, ever hopeful that another soul may be saved.
This, unfortunately, is not always the way things happen. One of the invocations in the Litany of the Saints is this: “From a sudden and unprovided death, good Lord deliver us!” We beseech Almighty God to save us from a death that is unexpected, sudden, and worst of all, unprovided—in other words, unprepared. It happens all the time. A person in the prime of life leaves his home one morning and never comes home. He has a sudden heart attack at work, or maybe a car accident on his way there. Sometimes it happens to many people at once without warning—think of the people who were instantly vaporized in the bombing of Hiroshima or at the top of the Twin Towers on 9-11. None of these victims ever expected to die when they did. How many had the chance to call on God before their last breath? After that last breath they would certainly come face to face with him. But then it was too late. They were either prepared for death or they were not. If not, theirs was not a happy death. It was sudden and unprovided, a death from which we definitely need to be delivered. Pray often and fervently for this intention.
St. Joseph is the Patron Saint of the Dying, the Patron Saint of a Happy Death. Who could have had a happier death than good St. Joseph, who died in the arms of Jesus and Mary? Pray to him that our own death may be so happy! Pray that we might be given the solace and grace of the Last Rites—the Sacrament of Penance, the blessed Viaticum, the anointing with the Holy Oils of Extreme Unction. We should always make sure our loved ones receive a visit from the priest when they are in danger of death. Not only is it helpful to them, it is also a great comfort to us who are left behind, knowing that they could receive these sacraments before they died, and were indeed delivered from a sudden and unprovided death.
As for us today, let’s just be sure our death isn’t unprovided, even if it’s sudden and unexpected. Let’s prepare for it now by making sure we’re in the state of grace. For if we are, we have the peace of knowing that no matter what happens, we are prepared for our judgment and ready to take our place in the ranks of the saints. We will have a happy death!