There have been a number of recent articles and reviews that suggest the reason people cling to religious faith is their fear of death, and that the primary role of religion is to promote belief in an afterlife, in immortality. The implication is that it is a braver, more realistic thing to accept, as Epicurus and Lucretius did, our mortality and the fact that we will not be ar (...)
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IT IS NOT DEATH WE FEAR
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The "fear of death" in religious teaching was alive and well into the mid-twentieth century, for those of us in Catholic schools who every day asked Mary to "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." (50 times, in fact, if we said the rosary that day!), and prayed at night "....if I should die before I wake...." In confession, we dreaded our sins "because of the loss of heaven and the pains of hell...." Not to mention all those gory stories of martyrdom, (and Holy cards visually depicting the tortured deaths) with the accompanying question: "what would you do if asked to deny Christ or be killed?" It was the primary story, image, and motivation to believe presented to me in my religious education in that era.
John Garvey must have peeped into my soul while writing his article. To explain, I'll tell of an esperience I had four or five years ago. One Sunday morning I woke up and knew something was strange and different. In saying my morning prayers, I didn't want to stop. I knew I was connecting at a level I've seldom experienced. I relate this to John's image of a "desire to be more awake" and far from being "tempted to dullness." Later, having coffee with my wife, I felt everything she said had meaning to me in a deep way. I just wanted to hug her. This surreal morning went on through breakfast and Mass. The homily went straight to my heart and I knew God sent it there. I received the Host in the same euphoric state and took the cup in my hands and emptied it. What happened? I sent the sweet Eucharistic minister running off with an empty cup. This was after she let out a soft whimper. Well, this put an end to my morning of super awareness. I was back "on this side of death", "to a lack of acute awareness."
I think this experience was a taste of "life lived more abundantly." I certainly relate to John garvey's article and thank him for helping me put my experience into perspective. I'm waiting for another one "on this side of death" (preferably a surreal experience but another great article is second best).