Sunday Meditation: A Reminder of Death and Judgment

 I think it was St. Robert Bellarmine who said priests should preach on the four last things at least once a month. Pondering on death and judgment, heaven or hell, has a way of focusing the mind. What’s really important in this life after all? It’s to live in a way that leads us to our God-ordained destiny. As the old Baltimore Catechism put it. “God made us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world so we can be happy with Him in the next.” The big question is, “How am I doing, Lord?” The answer points to our final destination.

Reflecting on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell

November is the month that Holy Mother Church focuses on the "four last things" -- death, judgment, heaven, or hell. I confess as I move closer to my 70th birthday I think about death more frequently. Not in a morbid sense at all, but in a realistic one.

I'm a practical person and realize that one of us, my husband or myself, will be left to deal with the death of the other. And so we've been talking about how we can make that painful ordeal easier for the surviving spouse. After we prayed a rosary in a local cemetery on All Souls Day, wee talked about buying burial plots now and perhaps planning our funeral Masses.

Funeral Today: Always a Good Time to Reflect on What's Really Important

This has been a summer of funerals. Today was our fourth in just a few short months. What was particularly memorable at today's funeral was one son's wonderful "memorial" to his father near the end of Mass. It wasn't the typical eulogy about all the great things Dad accomplished. He gave a very brief testimonial of how his Dad's faith and fidelity brought him back to the Church. He called himself a "prodigal son" but testified to his dad's never wavering in the faith. I couldn't help noticing at Communion that only about half the family went up to receive. Later I was talking to someone who said the mom told him her husband offered all his suffering that his children would return to the faith. I felt like that son's testimonial was a spark that might reignite the flame of faith in some of his relatives.