When we become too weak to carry our load

This will place the decisions of life’s necessities upon someone else. There is no mystery that many of us have had the responsibility of stepping in for an aging parent or another relative who has no one else to look after them and make final decisions that they used to take care of themselves.

It’s called getting old in most cases and at some point we all may need the same care when we cannot walk or maybe even feed ourselves. No one would cherish the probability to have another person, especially our spouse or a grown child to care for us as in the same requirement of a growing child. However, the need for palliative care can suddenly appear to a parent or any age group of a loved one. We must be ready to address that possibility and as a Christian be prepared to go the distance as needed.

If we live long enough we may see the obvious trauma of outliving our children which can have its own disastrous reality that no parent wishes to go through. Let’s look at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says regarding some of the needs we must adjust to; To rise with Christ, we must “be away from the body and be at home with the Lord.” In that “departure” which is death the soul is separated from the body. It will be reunited with the body on the day of resurrection of the dead. (CCC 1005).

“It is in regard to death that man’s condition is most shrouded in doubt.” In a sense bodily death is natural, but for faith it is in fact” the wages of sin.” For those who die in Christ’s grace it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his Resurrection. (CCC 1006).

Because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him.” 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 is his redeeming act. (CCC 1010).

“The dying should be given attention and care to help them live their last moments in dignity and peace. They will be helped by the prayer of their relatives, who must see to it that the sick receive at the proper time the sacraments that prepare them to meet the living God.” (CCC 2299).

There may be some who wish to avoid this part of life’s obvious trek but they must listen to the words of the celebrant at the funeral of a loved one; “In the waters of Baptism (name) died with Christ and rose with him to new life, May he/she now share with him eternal glory.”

The beginning of new life requires the end of the worn out and death of our own bodies.

Ralph B. Hathaway