The Great Exchange

A non-believer is confused when he hears a Christian pray for a happy death. For he

wonders: Is not man's existence always striving for continued life? The idea that one could be happy giving up life in this world is baffling, bewildering, and foolish for him because he is not steeped within the faith that teaches him otherwise.

This is because permeating man's earthly life is a certain angst that death will find him too soon with much left to be achieved. Hence, man anticipates the last scene of his life with dread for he believes that he has been given a certain mission in life and death will definitively end his opportunity to worthily accomplish it. The philosopher Ernst Bloch identified this anxiety about dying as the premature closure of our life that has yet to complete its job - the work of our life that has been left incomplete by the event our dying. But how does the Christian view his death so different by thinking that even if it does end his "work," perhaps- even with his work unfinished- death could still be happy?

First, let us ask if there is some truth in thinking this way: If a man dies before his time, something essential in defining who he is will be left undone? Perhaps we might think it true that the job given to us by our Creator will be left unaccomplished if death finds us prematurely. Our anxiety over death grows into a type of fear that might see death's sudden blow as the definite halt in the work of our life that will forever leave it incomplete. Regardless of what we have already achieved in the time granted to us, maybe we do think that what we are here on earth to do has not yet been fully accomplished and it is nothing but tragic if death were to find us at the present moment and leave our life perennially unfinished. We have not done all that we were meant for, therefore, we dread lying on our deathbed in an unsatisfied state until God will grant us yet more time to keep working.

But how much time are we to bargain for in order to finish our job? Will a week suffice or a month or a year? Who among us can even identify what the work of his life is, never mind how much more time he may still need to accomplish it?

A universal temptation entices us with the idea that we must do something to give our life meaning, we must do something that will make us worthy of God. A trap lies in wait as each of us wonders if death will find us having done enough to earn God's love.

To be ensnared by this trap will cause us to lose trust in God as Father because it forces us to think that only by accomplishing something of value can we then willingly hand over our spirits to Him. On the contrary, the faith of the genuine Christian on his deathbed compels him not to focus on what he has done as the determining factor that enables him to entrust his soul to his Maker; the measuring stick that tells him to peacefully entrust himself to God at death is the reality of who he is: a beloved son of God. He is a creature created by the Father and configured by baptism to His Son, Jesus Christ. The continuous presence of the Holy Spirit in his life- if not outright rejected by living a sinful life up to and including the point of death- enables one to say that one's redemption does not come from what he has done but by the benevolence of the God who has called him. It is not that the work of man is not essential to his salvation, it is that the powerful love of God is more essential.

Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that it is God's love that is most central to our salvation, there is still much truth and inspiration to be garnered from a morality play like The Summoning of Everyman. In this 15th-century drama, the protagonist named Everyman vainly searches for others to accompany him through death. Fellowship, Kindred, Riches, Knowledge, Beauty, and Strength all depart from him as he journeys towards the judgement seat of God. The only figure that remains with him until his journey is complete is the character Good Deeds. For in the end, our good works are really the only things we can bring with us to our summoning. We are reminded by our Lord (c.f Mt 25:31-46), by the Apostle Paul (c.f. Rm 2:6), and by John's vision of the Apocalypse (Rv 20:11-15) that we will be judged precisely on these works so, in a real sense, what we do does matter for it influences who we become and shapes our relationship with God.

But, the great mystery of Christian soteriology lies in that dim space of human activity that is inhabited by the insignificant works of man being made valuable by the significant work of Christ. At what point our weakness is overpowered by His efficiency is not clear to us; at what point the imperfection of our lives are made perfect by the power of God's love is still unknown. But salvation seems to be as C.S. Lewis imagined it in Mere Christianity: like a parent giving his child money to purchase a present for the parent. At what point should credit be given to the child who has gone out of his way to the store and purchased the gift- even though it was the parent who provided the money in the first place- is not altogether clear. What is clear is that the parent's money and the child's freedom were both necessary in order for the child to give the gift and the parent to receive it from him. The parent is to be thanked for the money and the child to be praised for spending it well.

So it is with the salvation granted by God "whose goodness toward all men is such that He wants His own gifts to be their merits" (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 16). For the salvation granted by the Father through Jesus Christ His Son comes from God as a gift of life to man and then is completed with its return as an offering of life from man back to God. Regardless of the emphasis it must always be recognized for what it is: a gift. But, lest we fall from the heights like Icarus by ignoring the far surpassing power of the sun upon our waxen wings, we must not think our gift to Him is greater than His is to us.

One resurrection account quietly alludes to this reality (c.f Jn 21:1-14). As the Apostles discouragingly return from an unsuccessful fishing expedition, they spot a stranger on the shore who gives them direction and guidance to go back out and drop their nets to bring in a catch. Upon heeding this stranger's helpful advice and discovering a large catch, they immediately recognize the stranger as the risen Lord and quickly row back into shore. Upon disembarking from their boat, they are invited by Christ to bring in their fish to cook on the charcoal fire He has started. But- probably to their surprise- He already has fish cooking on the fire for them to eat! What mystery is contained in this request of our Lord for the fisherman to bring Him some of the fish they caught even though He already had some to offer them?

Perhaps we are to see in this post-resurrection visit that whatever great thing we have done for the Lord, He always outdoes us in generosity. We are reminded by the joy of that glorious morning that "all human efforts are outstripped by the gifts of Christ" (Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World) or, as Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, that "man's best directed effort accomplishes a kind of dream, while God is the sole worker of realities" (The House of the Seven Gables). Perhaps salvation is like this exchange of fish where we eat the food He has provided and He stoops down low enough to enjoy that which we provide. Maybe the lesson we are to learn from this event on the Galilean Sea is that even for Him whose throne is in Heaven and whose footstool is the earth (c.f Is 66:1), He still takes delight in whatever good, however small, we bring Him. But let us not forget: His fish will always taste better than ours...unless of course he seasons ours with the salvific spice of His grace.

The Christian vocation is wrapped up in this activity of receiving life from God and giving it back to Him. But we must remember that when we give it back to Him, in a very true sense, we die. Indeed, T.S. Eliot goes so far to say that "the time of death is every moment" (The Four Quartets) insofar as the time to give our life back to God is demanded of us at every moment.

In fact, this is what precisely defined the notion of a priest as Fulton Sheen thought of it. An ordained priest of the New Covenant- a priest of Jesus Christ- offers a sacrifice just as all the other priests from pagan to Jew did throughout history. But his sacrifice is not offered as something outside himself like a bullock, a dove, grain or fruit. On the contrary, the Christian priest does not offer these sorts of extrinsic sacrifices but-in union with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross- offers his very self as the sacrifice. Now, of course every Christian is not an ordained priest, yet how important it is to remember that by one's mere baptism he joins in the work of Christ as the High Priest who offers Himself to the Father. Indeed, even the layman is baptized into that common priesthood of the faithful, thus making it his sole duty to offer his life freely to the Father.

And so, even if the Christian has not put in the hard work of offering a substantial catch to the Lord during his earthly life, he must not be apprehensive about death even if Bloch's anxiety over it rings familiar to his own fear. For there is still one great work left for man to accomplish, and being on his deathbed is the precise place for it to be fulfilled: it is the offering up of his life in its entirety to God.

For all the other work of a man's life will never be enough to satisfactorily assuage his own conscience; man's anxiety will always point to more things that he must do. On the contrary, from the Christian perspective, the moment of death provides a person with that essential opportunity to give his gift back to the Father. No more time is needed to give him a fair chance to shop around for a better present. His happiness at death is not found in giving to God the things he has accomplished; it is not found in offering to God a successfully completed mission. It is not even found in being able to offer to God a life lived without sins or mistakes. Christian happiness in death is found in being blessed to know that one can indeed give himself to the Father who loves him and then- as a result of this love- be able to trust that this same Father will see him through. Death will always find the Christian fairly because the grounds for handing over his spirit are not based on his own experiences and the actions he has performed during his perceived short life. It is based on God's wise call that always knows when to invite us to surrender ourselves to Him in death. For this reason, the wise Christian should know that there are no periods that will prematurely punctuate his sentence, for in the end it is not in what we have done that we are to find consolation - the great work that matters is what He has done. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory"(Ps 115:1).