Thinking about death

As a seventy-year-old Catholic I find myself thinking more and more about death. I therefore appreciated John Garvey's profound and sobering article on the subject. His stark description resonated especially with me: "Death is as bad as it looks.... It is the loss of everything we have known. No one who has loved anyone or anything in this life can find the idea of leaving life anything but tragic." This tragic sense is evident when I talk with other "elders" in my Philadelphia parish. They voice strong faith in Jesus' promise of eternal life, yet they are also sad at the impending loss of everything and everyone they know and love. I can identify with these unsettling feelings while strongly affirming, as they do, our faith in Jesus' promises: "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" and "I will raise him on the last day."

I often have wondered what heaven will be like. So many Christian visions of heaven, in art and literature, portray angels and saints doing nothing but adoring and praising God's name. All eyes are on God in the beatific vision. Wonderful. But something is missing. It is as though the second commandment has been abolished in favor of the first. This cannot be if the God of heaven is still the Father of Jesus. Won't he still be the God who asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves? Doesn't he still reveal Jesus in the poor and the hungry, the sick and the oppressed? If in heaven we are united with God's love, if we are "transformed into his likeness" (2 Cor 3:18), isn't it possible that God will invite us, not only to praise him, but also to join him in making the earth more just, peaceful, and loving?

RICHARD K. TAYLOR

Philadelphia, Pa.

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