Death would be the most unanswered question in human history. We all want to ask “why?”. It can be easy to point the finger at God when it comes to suffering and death. However, we must remember that the Lord does not delight at all in the sufferings, or death of anyone. In fact, God intended for people to live forever. Yet, as we know that plan was broken by mortal sin; and once sin entered the world, death came with it.

 

Our earthly life is dependant on time. And obviously, we get older as time goes on. We all experience different things during our lives, joy, heartache, suffering and love. We welcome others into our lives, and enjoy each other's company and build connections with our neighbours  and people who we have in common with. It all seems natural for us as basically ever since time began, humanity has been going down the same path. But something about life doesn't make sense... as I asked before; "why?" 
 
No matter how old we get, grief doesn’t get any easier. I believe it is the only universal thing that no one can say they have become comfortable with. Grief always comes to us fresh and like we’ve never experienced it before. I wonder if it's the fact that everyone, deep down knew we were made to live forever with God, as it was His ultimate plan for us, however, when death occurs in our lives, our souls feel like "this isn't what was intended to happen". Death is a sting to our soul. it’s like God doesn’t want us to get too familiar with feeling content with death, that He made it so that it would be a reminder to us to reflect on our short lives and to find the meaning of life; outside of our worldly existance, and where the Lord stands in it. 
 
As much as we want to, we can’t wish away death. Until the Lord returns, we need to face the fact that death and grief will be a constant problem, and battle in our lives. However, we can pray to the Lord for courage and help when the time does come. 
 
Throughout early times, and history up to 50 or 60 years ago, death was ever-present. Now with high advances of technologies, medical research, and many more worldly distractions than we can comprehend, our knowledge of death and human mortality has in many ways, diminished. Society has become so clever at extending our life span through medical care, lifestyle advice, and providing us with the life’s essential needs. However, it can come with a catch. 
 
The fact that society has in a way hidden us from death and suffering by moving people away from us into hospitals and palliative care centres, has made many of us lose touch with life’s core fact, that death is all around us. Because the fact that the concept of death is being hidden or ignored, our tendency of becoming bitter and resentful increases when the time of death does enter our daily experience.
 
Death comes like a stab out of nowhere of the ever-present reality that we live in a broken and mortal world. Sometimes, a lot of the time we don’t expect people to die, but the unfortunate thing is, we will all pass away one day. 
 
A TV show that I can binge watch for hours, Downton Abbey centres around real historical events, however the characters and life of the household is fictional. For those who have seen the TV show know the tragic ending to some of the most iconic characters. My first reaction when I saw the fate of my favourite characters, were "No! how dare they kill him/her off!". Most fictional movies and books have in a way distorted the reality that we are mere mortal human beings. Sometimes when we watch or read stories where an important figure or any character who we've started to like dies, we say the common three worded sentence "They can't die!".
 
In some traditional Catholic cultures, skulls are put up in homes as a mark of remembrance of our mortality. This practice is called Memento Mori. Despite skulls and crossbones not being my cup of tea, I find this practice interesting. I believe that it is important for people to understand about death, and the role that it has to play in the core of humanity. As devastating and hard that it is, I believe if we learn about death more deeply, when our time is getting closer or we experience death of a loved one, it can change the way we look at it. 
 
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we are given new hope, that despite being mortal, we will rise to new life, and be with the Trinity for all eternity. We will all celebrate the true supper of the lamb together in Heaven. Entering Heaven is the greatest thing that you would want for someone. The truth is that our lives are like a blink of an eye; which will come and go so quickly. However, our hope is that those who follow in the path of the Lord will be together longer in Heaven than we can ever be here on earth.
 
The Christian faith teaches that there is new life for those who believe and follow the way of the Lord. Knowing our new life will be a life of eternal blessings should give us, not to sound corny, but a brighter future. The biggest hope we could ever have is knowing that Christ in a way united death with life. Jesus being raised from death to life conquers death. Of course, we ourselves cannot raise ourselves from death to life, but as Catholic Christians, we should have confidence that Christ will bring us to new life after death. Instead of a story that ends with death, Christ came and gave the story a new ending.
 
Basically it's our soul what makes us, us. Yes, we all have a brain, a heart, lungs, etc. However, without a soul the human body wouldn’t be fully human. Our soul is the one truly living thing that won’t die, even in bodily death. To think that our souls have more value than a star in the sky is an unbelievable concept. Even though the soul lives forever, God intended that the body and soul would always be inseparable. Yet, as we know, that hope was damaged through original sin. The amazing thing though is that at the end of time, end of the world itself, that is, we will receive our bodies back and our soul and body will be united like it is right now. 

 

However, there is something more. When Christ was raised from death to life, He didn't just have a normal body like He did before. By going to Heaven and back here to earth, His body was glorified. This means that He was Himself, though He could do things that (as a human) couldn't do before, like walk through a locked door, and appear whenever and wherever He wanted. One of the most beautiful parts of knowing this is that He showed us this to give us hope and joy that we one day, as His faithful will be raised in the same way as Christ was. We will be, you could say, a perfect version of ourselves.
 
“Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Spirit,
who was poured out upon you. Go forth, faithful Christian! May you live in peace this day,
may your home be with God in Zion, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with Joseph, and all the angels and saints.... May you return to [your Creator] who formed you from the dust of the earth. May holy Mary, the angels, and all the saints come to meet you as you go forth from this life.… May you see your Redeemer face to face.” -Prayer of Commendation (CCC 1020)