Pope Quote About Death

POPE QUOTE ABOUT DEATH

“Not only man is tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast.

Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour.

For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God.

Pope Paul 6th, Joy and Hope, 18

Read more:

– The “Last Things”: Hell, Heaven and Purgatory – In this article Jesuit theologian, Josep Gimnez discusses the concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory.

-The Art Of Dying Well –  Based in the Catholic tradition but open to all, this website features real-life stories about dealing with the journey through death to eternal life.  It offers a helping hand to those grappling with issues around death and dying.

-Regrets of The Dying – An article by Bronnie Ware, a nurse who worked in palliative care whose life has been transformed by the patients she met. Based around this article, Bronnie has released a full length book titled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying , A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing.