By Father Fred Edlefsen

November’s windblown leaves tell a prophetic tale: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). November taps us on the shoulder and says, “It’s time to cut life’s silver cord.” Spring’s freshness and summer’s lush green succumb to the chills of winter’s death. And yet, November suggests hope: Advent and Christmas loom on the horizon.

Death is a mixed blessing. It brings fear and relief. Fear of the hereafter and relief from the here and now. The afterlife is unknown, notwithstanding Faith. Death relieves time’s burdens, and it brings people together. Reconciliation and peace are given to the dying – and to their grieving loved ones.

Your last Holy Communion, before death, is called Viaticum, which means, “I go with you.” In death, no one can go with you – except Christ. In Viaticum, Jesus takes you by the hand and walks with you through death’s dark tunnel into Eternal Light. You’re consoled before “Christ’s tribunal” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Your life is an open book before God. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is feared. Your willful resistance to God is overcome. Your soul is purified. Baptism’s grace flowers in Eternal Light. You will rise from death.

In death, we definitively accept or reject God’s mercy. In death, we decide our hereafter. Heaven’s essential happiness is our intimate Vision of God and friendship with saints in a Heavenly City. Hell’s essential suffering is loneliness.

“There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two there is a great difference” (Didache, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”, circa 60 AD). Life or Death. Love or Loneliness. Heaven or Hell. We definitively choose one or the other. God’s justice can be forced. But God’s love and friendship must be chosen. In either case, both penitent and non-penitent experience mercy, though in different ways. The penitent experiences mercy as friendship. The non-penitent experiences mercy as justice. “Between the two there is a great difference.”

“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16).