Advent, as I alluded to earlier this week, is not simply a time for celebrating the mystery of Christ’s first coming in the Incarnation. It is also a time to reflect on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell. As luck would have it, one of my favourite saints, St Francis de Sales, meditated on these very things in his classic work, Introduction to the Devout Life. So, if you would, feel free to join me each Friday over these next four weeks, as I follow St Francis’s meditations up until Christmas Day. For each meditation, I’ll post a link for you to follow along as well as some of my own thoughts.
The Four Last Things: Death
St Francis de Sales: On Death.
Sometimes—in times I’ve walked through a cemetery, that is—I’ll look at the names on the tombstones, and this thought will burrow itself into my soul of how each of these people once led their own individual lives like mine, with their own unique stories, social circles, experiences, wants, sufferings, joys, and legacies. What’s amazing to think about when you see those stones planted firmly in the earth is that underneath them lies someone who was once rather like you or me. Memento mori: remember, you will die.
Christmastime is a tricky time for many people. It’s not just the huge credit card bill that comes due, or the rabid organising of family plans, or trying to book time off of work. For many people, this is their first Christmas without someone dear to them; and that is an awful, awful feeling. I don’t think there’s much I could say that would fully express those emotions. Yet, that it should happen is one of the facts of life, and one day, in God’s time, we, too, shall join them in departing from this life to that which is to come.
But for those of us still here, who grieve and pray for the dearly departed, we are left with our memories of them as well as many other accompanying emotions. For some of us, I know, we are left with some regrets: things we feel we ought to have said or did while they were still around. “I should have spent more time with them,” “I should have told them I loved them more,” or “What I wouldn’t give for another day with them”. Regret coupled with grief can be a heavy burden to carry, and while it is burdensome, one thing regret can do is help us to live more intentionally today.
In our meditation, we heard of the unsurety of the time of our death. It’s popular to imagine we have a deathbed in our old age, but unfortunately for many people, they are not given such a passing. Sometimes we are given less time than we’d hoped for, and death is sudden or premature. Given that, is it not fitting that we should live each moment as if it could be our last?
The importance of right priorities in life is important in this regard. While he is known for his comedies and overall silliness, there is one Adam Sandler movie that I believe makes this point quite well: Click. Here we have a man driven to succeed in his work who (literally) fast-forwards through every meaningful moment in his life, which soon passes him by; and as he lays dying, he expresses his regret at not having done things differently by, for instance, spending more time with his children or attending to his wife more.
Truth be told, we all take our lives for granted; and I am as guilty of this as anyone is! And when our lives are about to be taken from us, the things that mattered to us in the end—that which we see as being of ultimate importance—are made clearer because, as our meditation tells us, we shall soon go without. I understand one cannot do everything, so maybe start small; and when you imagined yourself, as I did, laying on your deathbed, think of what comes to mind. Call that special someone or check in with that relative you haven’t seen in a while, and make that choice to live more intentionally. As a pretty “righteous dude” once said:
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Ferris Bueller
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