AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH

Before he died on 13 September after a long illness, a distinguished historian wrote this advice to others who are dying

Death is not only unavoidable but necessary; and how we die is, at least in part, determined by our choices. If, like me, you are faced by terminal illness, be thankful that you have not died suddenly. You may have been one of those who, in the belief that they would be spared suffering, wanted to pass away quickly and without warning. If so, you have been ignoring the effect that such an event would have had on your family, the chaos you would certainly have left behind and the burdensome and expensive work of tidying up that would have been imposed on others. You have been privileged and it is important that you should make use of this grace to set your affairs in order.

If you are, like me, a Christian, you have been given the opportunity to prepare yourself to meet your creator. Catholics have always prayed to be spared “a sudden and unprovided death”. Bear in mind that God has some purpose for you. Take full advantage of the sacraments. Establish a pattern of regular prayer, but do not give way to over-enthusiasm. It is better to begin modestly and to build further if you find it desirable.

Be glad, too, that the warning you have had will allow you to come to terms with your condition. You must try to be at peace. A good death can provide comfort to your family, but it needs a contribution from yourself as well as the assistance of medicine. This is hard advice. It is easier for old men like me to follow it than for the young, who are bound to feel unfairly treated by providence. Nevertheless, you must be reconciled to your end as far as is possible. Avoid anger or regrets. Do not despair. Enjoy the life left to you and be grateful for it. 

This will prove to be easier than you expected. You will have found already that, in the moments after you heard the doctors’ report, any idea of a future was driven from your mind. No other option was left to you than to live day by day. I was astonished to find how quickly I came to terms with this. I should have lived every moment as though it was my last throughout my life, but I had pursued my career on the assumption that I would survive almost for ever. Now, with the evaporation of the future, the present moment became so precious that I wondered why I had let it fly by. My senses were intensified. My curiosity was sharpened. The beauty of natural objects and the vividness of my surroundings were enhanced. You will discover yourself embracing this vision, which is the one we had as children, lost with age and have now recovered. It is exhilarating and rewarding.

The annihilation of your future should not prevent you from setting yourself some short-term goals. These can be related to your work, to your interests, or to the issues that you do not want to leave unresolved on death. Write your memoirs. Take up painting. You must remain active and involved as long as you can.

Do not let the acceptance of death become a surrender to it. We all dread the prospect of pain. Modern medicine cannot entirely relieve us of it, although my experience is that it can be made bearable and that, as so often in life, expectations are worse than reality. Of course there are cases where death is agonising or where a neurological disorder gradually deprives a victim of all senses or where an active man or woman finds the prospect of dependence on others unbearable. One hears regularly of those for whom life has become so atrocious that they want a legitimate means to end it. Their despair and the compassionate support of their carers are understandable and moving, but life is a precious gift from God and as Christians we believe that we have no right to dispose of it as we please. And whether or not we are attached to a religion, it is counter-productive for most of us to believe that we should be able to end our lives at will. There are dangers in manufacturing its closure, however attractive this may seem to be.
A feature of the condition in which we find ourselves is that we are often subjected by well-meaning relations and friends to bizarre advice and quack remedies. Do not allow yourself to be tempted by nostrums that never work and make our reconciliation to our illness harder by presenting us with apparently easy solutions. It is cruel to offer forlorn hope in this way. It is best for us to follow the advice of doctors, whose treatments are at least based on science.

We are all drawn to the extraordinary at the expense of the mundane, because, although some of us abandon faith altogether, many of us at least half believe that there is more to life than material existence and in crises turn beyond ourselves. In the initial stages of my disease it was not my religion that comforted me; it was the recognition of my condition that heightened my attachment to my religion. In other words, that yearning for something beyond myself found expression in the strengthening of my faith. In the end, of course, faith and illness become so intertwined that each becomes part of the other.

Remember that all your life has been a preparation for an event which is as significant as your birth and is far more important than any birthday. You are about to pass on to another plane and into another world. There may still be time to draw some comfort from memories of your earthly past, provided that you do not become consumed by unnecessary guilt. What happened long ago is over and done with, although it is good to make peace with anyone you have offended. 

Treat your death as a celebration. Take an interest in it. Plan your funeral as carefully as you would the wedding of one of your children. Take care to leave your closest relations with good memories of your ending. Your fortitude will ensure that they will remember you with pride and affection, and that they will pray for you. Remember that death is no barrier to prayer.

Jonathan Riley-Smith was a historian of the Crusades, and a Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History. He was also a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His Requiem Mass will be at Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Hills Road, Cambridge on Tuesday 27th September at 12.15pm.

THE HAIL MARY

 THE POWER OF ONE HAIL MARY

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,  The Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women,
and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

Millions of Catholics often say the Hail Mary. Some repeat it hastily not even thinking on the words they are saying. These following words may help some say it more thoughtfully. They can give God's Mother great joy and obtain for themselves graces that she wishes to give them.

One Hail Mary well said fills the heart of Our Lady with delight and obtains for us indescribably great graces. One Hail Mary well said gives us more graces than a thousand thoughtlessly said.

The Hail Mary is like a mine of gold that we can always take from but never exhaust. Is it hard to say the Hail Mary well? All we have to do is to know its value and understand its meaning.

St. Jerome tells us that "the truths contained in the Hail Mary are so sublime, so wonderful that no man or Angel could fully understand them."

St. Thomas Aquinas, the Prince of Theologians, "the wisest of Saints and holiest of wise men," as Leo XIII called him, preached for 40 days in Rome on the Hail Mary, filling his hearers with rapture.

Father F. Suarez, the holy and learned Jesuit, declared when dying that he would willingly give all the many learned books he wrote, all his life's labors, for the merit of one Hail Mary prayerfully and devoutly said.

St. Mechtilde, who loved our Lady very much, was one day striving to compose a beautiful prayer in her honor. Our Lady appeared to her, with the golden letters on her breast of: "Hail Mary full of grace." She said to her: "Desist, dear child, from your labor for no prayer you could possibly compose would give me the joy and delight of the Hail Mary."

A certain man found joy in saying slowly the Hail Mary. The Blessed Virgin in return appeared to him smiling and announced to him the day and hour that he should die, granting him a most holy and happy death.

After death a beautiful white lily grew from his mouth having written on its petals: "Hail Mary."

Cesarius recounts a similar incident. A humble and holy monk lived in the monastery. His poor mind and memory were so weak that he could only repeat one prayer which was the "Hail Mary." After death a tree grew over his grave and on all its leaves was written: "Hail Mary."

These beautiful legends show us how much devotion to Our Lady was valued, and the power attributed to the Hail Mary devoutly prayed.

Each time that we say the Hail Mary we are repeating the very same words with which St. Gabriel the Archangel saluted Mary on the day of the Annunciation, when she was made Mother of the Son of God.  Many graces and joys filled the soul of Mary at that moment.

Now when we say the Hail Mary we offer anew all these graces and joys to Our Lady and she accepts them with Immense delight.  In return she gives us a share in these joys.

Once Our Lord asked St. Francis Assisi to give Him something. The Saint replied: "Dear Lord, I can give You nothing for I have already given you all, all my love." Jesus smiled and said: "Francis, give Me it all again and again, it will give Me the same pleasure."  So with our dearest Mother, she accepts from us each time we say the Hail Mary the joys and delight she received from the words of St. Gabriel.

Almighty God gave His Blessed Mother all the dignity, greatness and holiness necessary to make her His own most perfect Mother. But He also gave her all the sweetness, love, tenderness and affection necessary to make her our most loving Mother. Mary is truly and really our Mother. As children when in trouble run to their mothers for help, so ought we to run at once with unbounded confidence to Mary.

St. Bernard and many Saints said that it was never, never heard at any time or in any place that Mary refused to hear the prayers of her children on earth. Why do we not realize this most consoling truth? Why refuse the love and consolation that God's Sweet Mother is offering us?  Is it our lamentable ignorance which deprives us of such help and consolation. To love and trust Mary is to be happy on earth now and afterwards to be happy in Heaven.

Dr. Hugh Lammer was a staunch Protestant, with strong prejudices against the Catholic Church. One day he found an explanation of the Hail Mary and read it. He was so charmed with it that he began to say it daily. Insensibly all his anti-Catholic animosity began to disappear. He became a Catholic, a holy priest and a professor of Catholic Theology in Breslau .

A priest was called to the bedside of a man who was dying in despair because of his sins. Yet he refused obstinately to go to confession. As a last recourse the priest asked him to say at least the Hail Mary after which the poor man made a sincere confession and died a holy death.

In England , a parish priest was asked to go and see a Protestant lady who was gravely ill, and who wished to become a Catholic. Asked if she had ever gone to a Catholic Church, or, if she had spoken to Catholics, or if she had read Catholic books? She replied, "No, no." All she could remember was that------when a child------she had learned from a little Catholic neighbor girl the Hail Mary, which she said every night. She was Baptized and before dying had the happiness of seeing her husband and children Baptized.

St. Gertrude tells us in her book, "Revelations" that when we thank God for the graces He has given to any Saint, we get a great share of those particular graces.

What graces, then, do we not receive when we say the Hail Mary while thanking God for all the unspeakable graces He has given His Blessed Mother?

HOW MUCH POWER HAS SATAN

And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that (Job) has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Job 1:12 Satan afflicts believers. Don’t underestimate him. He’s not an imp in red tights with a pitchfork. But don’t give him more credit than he’s due. In 2 Corinthians 12:7 Paul said a messenger of Satan was given him to afflict him. Satan was behind Jobs’ suffering. The enemy can afflict us physically. He tempts us to sin. But his greatest weapons are his fiery darts – his lies about God that he launches against our faith.  We are in a serious conflict with the powers of darkness. Yet sometimes I hear Christians talk as if Satan were all-powerful. “The devil has really been having a field day in my life lately.” “Satan’s really been kicking me around this week.” When I first became a Christian I thought demons were everywhere. (I’d definitely watched too many episodes of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits). In my early Christian years I spent lots of time rebuking and binding demons of lust, demons of fear, and demons of unbelief, anger, self-pity, and sickness. Pretty much everything bad in life was caused by a demon. I probably rebuked demons of bad coffee. Then I found out just how limited Satan’s power really is. He’s powerful, but not all-powerful. He is the god of this world. Unbelievers are significantly under his power, though they don’t realize it. He has blinded their eyes. But once Jesus opens our eyes to his glory and saves us, we come under his ownership. We’re no longer slaves of Satan. We’re new creations in Christ and share his victory over the enemy that he won on the cross. When Satan afflicts believers he must get permission to do so, even as he did with Job. God determined the parameters of what Satan could do to Job. Each time Satan requested, God said you may do this and this but not this. He could only do what God allowed. Lots of people seem to think the devil is the equal and opposite of God, like the dark side of The Force. But Satan is a created being. God is infinite. Satan is less than a speck compared to the infinite One. If anything, Satan might be compared to Michael the Archangel, another created being. A.W. Tozer said we tend to think of created beings in a hierarchy, for example on the bottom are amoebas, then above them garden slugs and above them fish, then dogs. Above dogs are monkeys, then humans, and slightly above them are angels and then slightly above angels is God. But God is infinitely exalted over his creation. The most glorious Seraphim in heaven is closer to a caterpillar in it’s being than it is to God. Satan is a tool of God, and when he allows him to afflict a believer it’s for God’s glorious purposes – to make that believer rely on Christ, become like Christ and display the power of Christ in him. So remember you have an enemy, but fix your gaze on Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords.