Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning, writes Cathal Barry
To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
We must "be away from the body and at home with the Lord"(2 Cor 5:8).In that "departure" which is death the soul is separated from the body (Phil 1:23). It will be reunited with the body on the day of resurrection of the dead (Paul VI).
The Church teaches that Death is the end of earthly life. “Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on Earth, death seems like the normal end of life,” the Catehcism states. “That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realise that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfilment,” it says.
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth… before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Eccl 12:1, 7).
Death, according to Church teaching, is also a consequence of sin. The Church's Magisterium, as interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that “death entered the world on account of man's sin”.
“Even though man's nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin,” the Catechism states.
Death, according to Church tutelage, is transformed by Christ. “Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered the death that is part of the human condition,” the Catechism states. However, despite his anguish as he faced death, “he accepted it in an act of complete and free submission to his Father's will. The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing,” the document says.
Because of Christ, the Catechism states, Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).
"The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him” (2 Tim 2:11).
The Church teaches that what is essentially new about Christian death is this: “Through Baptism, the Christian has already ‘died with Christ’ sacramentally, in order to live a new life; and if we die in Christ's grace, physical death completes this ‘dying with Christ’ and so completes our incorporation into him in his redeeming act.”
In death, according to the Church, “God calls man to himself”. Therefore the Christian can experience a desire for death like St Paul's: "My desire is to depart and be with Christ"(Phil 1:23).
Death, the Church teaches, “is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny”.