The older I get, the more I ponder the brevity of this life. When I think of all the good people who have loved, mentored, taught, and helped me who have died, I realize that my earthly existence is hurtling toward its conclusion.

Lent is an opportune time to meditate on death, as we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross and His resurrected triumph over the dark powers of sin and mortality.

What lessons does death have to teach us? What secrets does it hold?

Be still

So many things that cause me worry, anxiety, anger, regret, or fear are actually of minimal importance in the big scheme of things.

When life pulls me into those negative emotions, I try to remember that so very little of it will matter when I am on my deathbed.

We can waste our time fretting about things over which we cannot control or we can stay focused on the big picture and the important things: Our relationship with God and our growth in holiness, our love for and service to others, becoming the saint that God has called us to be, and overcoming sin and selfishness in our lives.

In the end, God’s scales of judgment will weigh our lives on these fundamental principles.

Made for more

Death teaches us to love and long for Heaven.

We are strangers and pilgrims in this world; our homeland is beyond the stars and beyond our imagining.

We are made for eternity, an unending life in a perpetual and glorious union with God and the Communion of Saints.

If we are faithful to the Lord in this life, by the mercy of Christ, we will live forever in this beatitude of joy.

Think of the deepest and most satisfying experience of God in your life, multiply it by infinity and you begin to grasp what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him.  

Many people have a very underdeveloped sense of Heaven.

Images of us floating on clouds or having what we most enjoyed in this life in unlimited quantities capture some popular notions of eternity.

Heaven is so much more than that! It is life with God forever, after we have been purified of every vestige of sin and death. Wow!

Sanctified by loss

Death shows us how to let go and surrender.

When we drop into the great mystery of death, we hand over everything — our bodies and souls, our relationships and experiences, our possessions and our securities, setting out for our eternal homeland.

Every loss, grief, setback, and suffering in this life then becomes a dress rehearsal for what we will do in an absolute and final way when we die.

This Christian understanding of limitation and loss transforms our sorrows and crosses into sacred opportunities which ready us for death and eternal life.  

Heed the call

None of us know the day, hour, or nature of our death.

Will we die in an accident, endure a protracted illness, suffer long and hard, or leave this world in an instant?

I would like to have time to get ready for death; some warning so that I could put my spiritual house in order and be ready for the final moment.

But now as I think about it, I have been warned. I do have time to get ready. That time is now!  

That’s what we heard on Ash Wednesday at Mass in the Second Reading: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).  

Lent impels me to not put off prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for some other time.

Death reminds me to not postpone showing my love and appreciation to the people around me.

The brevity of this life whispers in my ear to not wait to be serious about holiness and to love God with radical generosity and fervor.

The Church gives us these beautiful days of penance and conversion to slow us down and to speed us up, to console us with the immensity of God’s love but also to urge us on in the great adventure of discipleship as we make our pilgrim way to the Father’s House.

Even if we have failed by this point in our Lenten resolutions, it is not too late to pick ourselves up and keep going with renewed fervor.

Eternity awaits!