# Why You Should Ponder Your Death - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 10 Jul 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733573/why_you_should_ponder_your_death.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: The Christian trust is something like this that what we
[0:04] Speaker 1: accomplish here below will be taken up into God's eternity
[0:08] Speaker 1: and elevated transfigured.
[0:20] Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show.
[0:22] Speaker 3: I'm Brandon Vat, the host and the senior publishing director
[0:25] Speaker 3: at Word on Fire. Death is a topic that most
[0:29] Speaker 3: of us try to avoid. So why does Catholicism teach
[0:32] Speaker 3: that we should actually meditate regularly on our death? And
[0:36] Speaker 3: how does Christianity answer the challenges.
[0:39] Speaker 2: Posed by death.
[0:40] Speaker 3: That's what we'll be discussing today with Bishop Robert Baron,
[0:43] Speaker 3: who joins us from our Rochester studio.
[0:45] Speaker 2: Bishop, good to see you.
[0:47] Speaker 1: Hey, Brandon, good morning, Good to see you as always.
[0:50] Speaker 3: Several months ago you attended a meeting with your brother bishops.
[0:54] Speaker 3: It was your regular USCCB gathering, and at that meeting,
[0:57] Speaker 3: the bishops elected a hand full of representatives to send
[1:01] Speaker 3: to Rome in October for the forthcoming Senate on senidality,
[1:06] Speaker 3: and you were elected. It kind of was kept under
[1:08] Speaker 3: wraps for many, many months, but the Pope just publicly
[1:12] Speaker 3: ratified those appointments. So tell us what this event is.
[1:16] Speaker 3: I know we've actually talked about a couple times on
[1:18] Speaker 3: this show. But what are you personally expecting and hoping
[1:20] Speaker 3: for at the Senate.
[1:23] Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. This will be different. I think
[1:26] Speaker 1: I was at the last one. I was elected as
[1:27] Speaker 1: well to the Senate on young People, and then what
[1:30] Speaker 1: I think was a bit more straightforward that we knew
[1:32] Speaker 1: the topic and we were just going to go and
[1:34] Speaker 1: the bishops were going to debate and then we issue
[1:37] Speaker 1: a statement. This one, I'm not as sure. I don't
[1:41] Speaker 1: think this session will result in any kind of statement
[1:43] Speaker 1: because there's going to be a follow up session. They
[1:46] Speaker 1: also have talked about not having so many formal speeches.
[1:50] Speaker 1: Last time around, every delegate was able to give a
[1:52] Speaker 1: four minute speech. I don't think that's going to happen
[1:55] Speaker 1: this time. My impression is it'll be more like small
[1:58] Speaker 1: group work and the instrumental laborious as well. Last time
[2:02] Speaker 1: was like a trial document. You might say, it was
[2:05] Speaker 1: a you know, pretty well formulated document. This one is
[2:08] Speaker 1: more questions to guide our conversation, so it'll be a
[2:12] Speaker 1: different Senate. Also, we're not going to gather in the
[2:16] Speaker 1: Senate Hale. I understand, we'll be in the Paul the
[2:18] Speaker 1: sixth audience area. I think so. Anyway, I don't know
[2:22] Speaker 1: for sure what this will be. It'll be, you know,
[2:24] Speaker 1: a bit of an adventure to find out.
[2:27] Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll be talking a lot about it here
[2:29] Speaker 3: on the Word on Fire Show. In fact, I believe
[2:31] Speaker 3: Word on Fire has plans to offer some sort of
[2:34] Speaker 3: coverage in and around the Senate in October, so we'll
[2:36] Speaker 3: definitely have more to say as the month years. For now, though,
[2:40] Speaker 3: let's talk about the topic of death. We're nearing the
[2:43] Speaker 3: four hundredth episode of the World on Fire Show. I
[2:45] Speaker 3: don't think we've ever done one on the topic of death.
[2:47] Speaker 2: I don't think, which is interesting.
[2:49] Speaker 3: You know, for centuries, Christians have practiced a discipline known
[2:53] Speaker 3: as memento mauri, maybe translated as remember death, Remember your death.
[2:59] Speaker 3: Where did this practic this come from? And why is
[3:02] Speaker 3: it a healthy discipline?
[3:04] Speaker 1: It's pretty ancient. It goes back to the you know,
[3:05] Speaker 1: monastic traditions. There was my mother telling me about this
[3:09] Speaker 1: when I was a little kid. She thought it was fascinating.
[3:12] Speaker 1: I think in certain Trappist communities they were encouraged every
[3:15] Speaker 1: day to dig a shovel of their own grave. So
[3:19] Speaker 1: that was the momento Moury, I think two of Keith
[3:24] Speaker 1: Richard of the Rolling Stones, where's this big ring with
[3:26] Speaker 1: a death's head on it? And he was once asked,
[3:28] Speaker 1: you know why do you wear that ring? And he said, well,
[3:31] Speaker 1: Momento Moury, I thought, well, okay, fair enough, you know
[3:36] Speaker 1: why is it a good practice for all kinds of reasons.
[3:39] Speaker 1: But you won't really live your life in this world
[3:43] Speaker 1: properly unless and until you are very much aware of
[3:46] Speaker 1: the fact of death. Because if you just think, well,
[3:49] Speaker 1: this life is everything. There's this life, and that's that's
[3:52] Speaker 1: the whole frame of reference for every choice I make
[3:55] Speaker 1: and so on, you'll live your life entirely differently. Then
[3:59] Speaker 1: if you say no, I'm going to die, there's a
[4:02] Speaker 1: limitation to this life, and we would say I'm invited
[4:06] Speaker 1: to a richer and higher and more satisfying life beyond
[4:10] Speaker 1: this one, Well that's going to change your whole approach
[4:14] Speaker 1: to life. So to be reminded of death on a
[4:18] Speaker 1: regular basis is extremely important. Mind you too. Anyone that
[4:22] Speaker 1: prays the Hail Mary, you pray the Rosary, well you
[4:26] Speaker 1: are fifty times reminding yourself of your own death. Pray
[4:30] Speaker 1: for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,
[4:34] Speaker 1: and we say it fifty times every time you say
[4:37] Speaker 1: the rosary, So it's a very salutary exercise. It'll change
[4:42] Speaker 1: the way you approach your own life if you really
[4:45] Speaker 1: let that consciousness sink in.
[4:49] Speaker 3: Many commentators have noted how the modern world has a
[4:52] Speaker 3: very unique approach to death. For centuries and centuries, most
[4:56] Speaker 3: people died early, obviously, but they also die in their homes,
[5:01] Speaker 3: surrounded by friends, surrounded by family. Death was just a
[5:04] Speaker 3: normal part of existence, familiar even to children. However, today
[5:10] Speaker 3: most people typically die in sterile, sanitized hospitals or elderly
[5:14] Speaker 3: care facilities, often away from family, away from children. In fact,
[5:19] Speaker 3: it's common for many people never to have seen someone die.
[5:24] Speaker 3: Why do you think our culture pushes death to the
[5:26] Speaker 3: peripheries and what does that say about our approach to death?
[5:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, we're afraid of it, aren't we. You know, keep
[5:34] Speaker 1: it at bay. I don't want to see it. I
[5:35] Speaker 1: don't want to talk about it. Let's deal with as
[5:37] Speaker 1: quickly and sanitarily as we possibly can. But I think
[5:42] Speaker 1: you're absolutely right there, Brandon. That years ago, it was
[5:45] Speaker 1: much more part of life, and people were closer, you know,
[5:48] Speaker 1: to animals, to the world of nature, and they saw animals,
[5:52] Speaker 1: dying and wakes, you know, were typically held in someone's home.
[5:57] Speaker 1: So someone died at home, the body was laid out,
[6:00] Speaker 1: was displayed, probably in the in the parlor of the home.
[6:04] Speaker 1: There is something that's very healthy about that that people,
[6:08] Speaker 1: as you say, saw the very process of dying and
[6:12] Speaker 1: they saw their their loved one there in their own home.
[6:18] Speaker 1: There is something I think very rich and positive about that.
[6:23] Speaker 1: And we have sanitized the experience of death. I think
[6:27] Speaker 1: we're embarrassed by it and we're frightened of it, and
[6:30] Speaker 1: so we just want to keep it as much at
[6:32] Speaker 1: bay as we can. You know, the famous book from
[6:34] Speaker 1: years ago now, the Denial of Death. But that's a
[6:37] Speaker 1: key theme in our increasingly secularized Western culture. Do you
[6:43] Speaker 1: see recently it was Schwarzenegger came on and just said,
[6:48] Speaker 1: you know, you know, they asked what happens when you die? Well,
[6:51] Speaker 1: you go on the ground and you rot. Yeah, that's it.
[6:54] Speaker 1: And then he said, I'm just I'm just really angry
[6:57] Speaker 1: about this because i love my life and it's rich
[6:59] Speaker 1: and it's full, and I'm just gonna die and that's it.
[7:03] Speaker 1: I'm angry at it. And I thought that's kind of
[7:06] Speaker 1: both sides of the secular thing, like, Okay, that's all
[7:09] Speaker 1: we got and we go on the ground and rot.
[7:11] Speaker 1: So the only reaction you can have is I'm just
[7:13] Speaker 1: I'm just mad about it. You know, Well, that's a
[7:16] Speaker 1: total turning around of a Christian or a classically religious
[7:21] Speaker 1: approach to death acknowledging it. Yeah, we do go on
[7:26] Speaker 1: the ground and rot. I mean, our bodies do, and
[7:28] Speaker 1: that's important too to acknowledge that. But it's not Okay,
[7:32] Speaker 1: that's it, that's the end, and therefore I'm just into
[7:36] Speaker 1: kind of a rage about it. I thought that was telling.
[7:39] Speaker 1: You know, Schwartzeger certainly had a Catholic formation and a
[7:42] Speaker 1: Catholic background, and I think when I was in California,
[7:45] Speaker 1: they always said he went to mass regularly. But I
[7:48] Speaker 1: thought that lesson didn't sink his understanding of death.
[7:53] Speaker 3: And get your thoughts on how the media portrays death.
[7:57] Speaker 3: It struck me that if aliens came to our planeted
[8:00] Speaker 3: and spent a few hours watching our TV shows, our movies,
[8:04] Speaker 3: our video games, they would think we're obsessed with death.
[8:07] Speaker 3: Death is everywhere. The most popular shows, murder mysteries, people
[8:11] Speaker 3: getting killed left and right, video games, people getting shot,
[8:13] Speaker 3: left and right. But what strikes me is somewhat paradoxical
[8:17] Speaker 3: is despite being saturated in death, most of the deaths
[8:21] Speaker 3: in the media are hyper violent, sudden, spectacular deaths. Very
[8:27] Speaker 3: rarely do you just see an ordinary person dying in
[8:29] Speaker 3: an ordinary way, surrounding by their family. What do you
[8:32] Speaker 3: think that says the media's portrayal of death.
[8:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting in one way. You know,
[8:40] Speaker 1: storytellers have always been obsessed with two things. They always say,
[8:43] Speaker 1: sex and death. You might say that the highest pleasure
[8:47] Speaker 1: in this life and the thing we're most afraid of,
[8:49] Speaker 1: And so go back time immemorial storytellers, then poets and playwrights,
[8:54] Speaker 1: and now filmmakers, sex and death are the two things
[8:58] Speaker 1: that we probably talk about the most. But I take
[9:00] Speaker 1: your point, it's interesting about the violent portrayal of violent death.
[9:06] Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. Are we.
[9:10] Speaker 1: Are we just afraid of the normality of it in
[9:12] Speaker 1: a way that we have to hyper dramatize it so
[9:17] Speaker 1: that maybe that that makes it easier to bear or something.
[9:20] Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but that we want to divert our
[9:24] Speaker 1: attention from call it the spiritual dimension of death. I
[9:27] Speaker 1: think that's true. I think that's true. We don't want
[9:31] Speaker 1: people to meditate upon it in a salutary way. The
[9:34] Speaker 1: momentum Mary thing is a is an uplifting that's a
[9:37] Speaker 1: spiritually powerful way of thinking about death, as opposed to
[9:41] Speaker 1: kind of voyeuristic or hey, look at how amazing that is.
[9:44] Speaker 1: And but on the other hand, I'm just kind of
[9:46] Speaker 1: thinking this thing through. You know, why are we so
[9:50] Speaker 1: fascinated by watching people get killed? Well, it's because we
[9:54] Speaker 1: know our time is coming, and almost despite ourselves, maybe
[10:00] Speaker 1: we are fascinated by it. We're drawn to death to
[10:03] Speaker 1: think about it, to muse on it. You know what,
[10:07] Speaker 1: guy's interesting Brandon Larry King, remember the famous interviewer who
[10:11] Speaker 1: died not many years ago. He typically asked every person
[10:15] Speaker 1: interviewed what happens after we die? And he'd have you
[10:18] Speaker 1: from Billy Graham to the you know, the most ardent atheist.
[10:21] Speaker 1: He'd asked that same question, and you could really tell
[10:24] Speaker 1: he was interested in the answer. He wanted to know,
[10:28] Speaker 1: and he was very skeptical. He wasn't like a religious man,
[10:31] Speaker 1: but he also he fought against I remember one time
[10:35] Speaker 1: he said that I just I die and forever and
[10:39] Speaker 1: ever I'm just gone, and you could tell it wasn't
[10:42] Speaker 1: just a rhetorical device. He really wrestled with that. I thought, okay,
[10:48] Speaker 1: fair enough, that's like a secular person today trying to
[10:52] Speaker 1: come to terms. And then Schwarzenegger, I'm angry at it.
[10:56] Speaker 1: You know, Well, it's the loss of a religious context
[11:00] Speaker 1: for thinking about death.
[11:03] Speaker 3: Well, let's move there now to the religious and specifically
[11:06] Speaker 3: Christian approach to death. It struck me recently, the deeper
[11:10] Speaker 3: I've gotten into the Liturgy of the Hours, which is
[11:12] Speaker 3: of course centered around the Psalms. How often the Bible
[11:16] Speaker 3: speaks about this death. It's everywhere. It's the golden thread,
[11:19] Speaker 3: from Genesis through the Psalms, to history of Israel through
[11:22] Speaker 3: Jesus Paul revelation, it's everywhere. What is the Bible's ultimate
[11:27] Speaker 3: message about death?
[11:29] Speaker 1: Well, of course the Bible is very interesting. The Old Testament,
[11:32] Speaker 1: there's an evolution I think in the consciousness of Israel.
[11:37] Speaker 1: There is a large part of the Old Testament that
[11:39] Speaker 1: would hold kind of the Schwarzenegg review. I mean that
[11:42] Speaker 1: death is just the end. And if you see in
[11:45] Speaker 1: the Psalms, you know, and can the dust praise you?
[11:48] Speaker 1: What that means? Is hey, once I go down into
[11:50] Speaker 1: the ground, I mean, I'm done. There's no more praising,
[11:53] Speaker 1: and so Lord rescue my life, because once I'm in
[11:55] Speaker 1: the grave, I can't give you praise.
[11:57] Speaker 2: Right.
[11:58] Speaker 1: So there's a very strong strain within the Old Testament
[12:00] Speaker 1: of just yeah, this life is it, and when you die,
[12:04] Speaker 1: you die. Another strain, as the Old Testament unfolds, is
[12:09] Speaker 1: shadowy shay ole. You know that we die, we don't
[12:12] Speaker 1: entirely disappear, something like our spirit goes to this shadowy underworld,
[12:17] Speaker 1: which is not at all attractive or interesting. It's not
[12:20] Speaker 1: a place of paradise or heaven. It's like a sad
[12:24] Speaker 1: half life, right, but it's better than nothing. I spose.
[12:28] Speaker 1: Think of here the prophet Samuel, right, he's being called
[12:30] Speaker 1: by the Witch of Endor back from shadowy shay ole.
[12:34] Speaker 1: You find that too in the Psalms too, go down
[12:37] Speaker 1: into the depths and all that. And then, certainly, by
[12:40] Speaker 1: Jesus time, a strain is emerging within Judaism that says, no,
[12:46] Speaker 1: the righteous dead shall arise on the last Day. And
[12:49] Speaker 1: I think that's being born of a sense of God's
[12:52] Speaker 1: justice and of God's goodness and righteousness. I mean, why
[12:55] Speaker 1: would God make all these human beings and call them
[12:59] Speaker 1: to righteousness, and then that's it. So that strain is there.
[13:04] Speaker 1: You see in the Pharisees. Mind you, in the New Testament,
[13:07] Speaker 1: the Pharisees and the Sadducees fight because the Sadducees represent
[13:10] Speaker 1: that older view that nope, death is just it. And
[13:13] Speaker 1: you know, they're no angels, there's no spirits all that,
[13:16] Speaker 1: and the Pharisees are saying, no, no, there are all
[13:19] Speaker 1: such things. Jesus clearly would side with the Pharisees. Then
[13:25] Speaker 1: there's the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and now Christianity,
[13:29] Speaker 1: which comes up indeed out of Judism, but has a
[13:34] Speaker 1: completely unexpected ratification of the view that indeed there's a
[13:39] Speaker 1: resurrection of the dead, and not just a survival of
[13:43] Speaker 1: the soul that you might find in let's say, Greek philosophy,
[13:46] Speaker 1: but the resurrection of the dead. You might say, what
[13:50] Speaker 1: was expected of all the righteous dead at the end
[13:52] Speaker 1: of time happened within time with the resurrection of Jesus.
[13:56] Speaker 1: And then in that we begin to find hope. So
[14:00] Speaker 1: Paul will say, Jesus is the first fruits of those
[14:04] Speaker 1: who fall asleep. So he's the first Sign. He's the
[14:07] Speaker 1: morning Star, He's the indication of what God intends for
[14:11] Speaker 1: all of the righteous dead. So that's the New Testament
[14:15] Speaker 1: Christian perspective, bored of the resurrection coming up out of
[14:19] Speaker 1: this kind of loamy, complex Jewish background, but finding this
[14:23] Speaker 1: ratification in the resurrection. And I think you know, in Paul,
[14:28] Speaker 1: everything hinges upon the resurrection. Without the resurrection, all the
[14:31] Speaker 1: Christian faith falls apart. I think that's true. So that
[14:35] Speaker 1: gives us now the right context for understanding death.
[14:40] Speaker 3: I've recently been reading this great book called Remembered Death
[14:44] Speaker 3: by Matthew McCullough. Remember Death, Momento, Moury and McCullough identifies
[14:49] Speaker 3: four devastating problems that death poses to us, the four
[14:53] Speaker 3: things that frighten most people about death. So these would
[14:56] Speaker 3: be identity. What death says about who you are to
[15:00] Speaker 3: destroys you, futility. But death does to anything you accomplish
[15:04] Speaker 3: on this earth, loss, What it does to anything that
[15:07] Speaker 3: we love on this earth and in life, How it
[15:10] Speaker 3: robs us of all of our earthly joys, the things
[15:13] Speaker 3: we take delight in here on this earth. And yet
[15:15] Speaker 3: he shows how the death and resurrection of Christ turns
[15:19] Speaker 3: these problems on their head and in many ways resolves them,
[15:22] Speaker 3: solves them. So I thought, let's talk through each one
[15:25] Speaker 3: of those four aspects of death that most frighten us. So, first, identity.
[15:30] Speaker 3: Most people like Larry King aren't a Schwarzenegger, worry that
[15:34] Speaker 3: death destroys their identity.
[15:36] Speaker 2: When you die, you are no more.
[15:39] Speaker 3: How does Christ eclipse this problem that death poses to
[15:42] Speaker 3: our identity?
[15:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, well he solves it because we see the continuity
[15:48] Speaker 1: between the pre resurrection Jesus and the resurrected Jesus. There's
[15:52] Speaker 1: a difference, indeed, you know the fact that people don't
[15:55] Speaker 1: recognize him right away. He's seen as a transfigure, to
[15:59] Speaker 1: elevate version of himself. But nevertheless it's the same Jesus.
[16:05] Speaker 1: So there's a continuity of identity. And then, like in
[16:09] Speaker 1: our theological speculation, we'll talk about the soul. So even
[16:13] Speaker 1: as our bodies indeed go into the ground and decay,
[16:16] Speaker 1: but the soul, you might say, the deepest sell or
[16:20] Speaker 1: the seat of our identity, remains because it's not tied
[16:24] Speaker 1: to matter. It'll be rejoined to an elevated, transfigured matter.
[16:29] Speaker 1: That's true the resurrection of the body. But you might
[16:31] Speaker 1: say soul is the guaranteur of our identity across the
[16:36] Speaker 1: threshold of death.
[16:39] Speaker 3: Let's look at that second one, futility. What death does
[16:42] Speaker 3: to anything that we accomplish here on earth. After we die,
[16:45] Speaker 3: everything that we have built and accomplished in this world
[16:49] Speaker 3: will eventually fade away and on secularism will be ultimately futile.
[16:54] Speaker 3: How does Christianity answer this problem?
[16:57] Speaker 1: Remember Branders a couple of years ago to people that
[17:00] Speaker 1: we both admire. William Lane Craig and Jordan Peterson were
[17:03] Speaker 1: debating this point, and Craig was making the strong kind
[17:07] Speaker 1: of Christian claim that that look, if there is no God,
[17:10] Speaker 1: if there's no you know, spiritual realm, no eternal life,
[17:13] Speaker 1: things are just kind of pointless ultimately. And at the
[17:17] Speaker 1: time anyway, Peterson was kind of arguing, well, no, you
[17:20] Speaker 1: can still find meaning within you know, the limited framework
[17:22] Speaker 1: of this world. And you know, I get Peters's point,
[17:26] Speaker 1: Yes you can. You Michael Angelo, you know, creates the
[17:29] Speaker 1: David and there it is, and even for hundreds of
[17:31] Speaker 1: years people can enjoy that statue. But you were thinking
[17:35] Speaker 1: about that, you know, the earth in the farthest in
[17:38] Speaker 1: future will just become a cinder. It will be, it'll
[17:41] Speaker 1: be consumed, and every little thing from Shakespeare to Michaelangelo,
[17:47] Speaker 1: to every film ever made, every historical achieve all of
[17:52] Speaker 1: it will simply, you know, burn up. So I think
[17:56] Speaker 1: it is true. If that's the case, then ultimately nothing
[18:01] Speaker 1: we accomplish here below has has meaning. You could say
[18:04] Speaker 1: it has meaning for a time, or it serves a
[18:06] Speaker 1: limited purpose, you know, for the few people that will
[18:09] Speaker 1: take it in. But I think that's simply true that
[18:12] Speaker 1: if there is no God, no eternal life, they are
[18:14] Speaker 1: kind of futile. The Christian trust is something like this,
[18:19] Speaker 1: that what we accomplish here below will be taken up
[18:23] Speaker 1: into God's eternity and elevated, transfigured, move to a higher pitch.
[18:31] Speaker 1: Will the marble that makes up Michaelangelo's David eventually be destroyed?
[18:36] Speaker 1: Of course it will, right, But will somehow Michaelangelo's David
[18:42] Speaker 1: that great accomplishment, Will it be transfigured and taken up
[18:46] Speaker 1: into a higher dimensional system? Something like that? Or like
[18:50] Speaker 1: our acts of love here below, and you say a
[18:53] Speaker 1: simple active kindness for someone say well, you know, so
[18:55] Speaker 1: what you're both gonna die and you know, or you
[18:58] Speaker 1: you help someone in an aft who's starving and they said, well,
[19:01] Speaker 1: so what what's the point the other They're all going
[19:03] Speaker 1: to die anyway, But some of those acts which participate
[19:08] Speaker 1: even now in the love that God is, will be
[19:12] Speaker 1: taken up and transfigured in the eternal dimension. That solves
[19:17] Speaker 1: the problem I think of futility. No, No, we do
[19:22] Speaker 1: what's right and good and beautiful. Now within a higher
[19:26] Speaker 1: context of meeting.
[19:29] Speaker 3: Let's look at the problem of loss. What death does
[19:32] Speaker 3: to anything or anyone we love. Given naturalism, whenever someone
[19:36] Speaker 3: we love dies, a friend, spouse, a child, or some
[19:41] Speaker 3: good circumstance in our life ends, that's it. There's no
[19:45] Speaker 3: hope of getting it back. What does Christianity say to
[19:48] Speaker 3: this peril of loss?
[19:51] Speaker 1: Love is more powerful than death. And that's not a
[19:54] Speaker 1: sentimental claim, that's a metaphysical claim. The divine love is
[19:58] Speaker 1: more powerful than death. And I I think Brandon, we
[20:00] Speaker 1: do feel that when it comes to our loved ones.
[20:03] Speaker 1: And I know my father died many, many years ago,
[20:06] Speaker 1: but I still have a very i would say vibrant
[20:10] Speaker 1: relationship with him. My love for him, his for me
[20:16] Speaker 1: is stronger than death, transcends it. And I think we
[20:20] Speaker 1: can sense that, we know it theologically, and we say, well,
[20:25] Speaker 1: God is love, and God's eternal, and God draws all
[20:28] Speaker 1: things to himself, and so yeah, I can make that claim.
[20:30] Speaker 1: But also I think I feel it, I sense it
[20:35] Speaker 1: that we still stay in contact with those that we
[20:37] Speaker 1: love even though the body has faded away. It's a mystery.
[20:42] Speaker 1: We're hooking ourselves onto a very high, complex mystery of
[20:48] Speaker 1: i'd say dimensionality. There's this dimension of our ordinary experience,
[20:52] Speaker 1: time and space and the world of our senses, and
[20:55] Speaker 1: we're attuned to that world, and quitetas is that we
[20:59] Speaker 1: cling to it because that's our actual habitat. Of course
[21:01] Speaker 1: we do. That's the world that we know. But at
[21:03] Speaker 1: the same time, and it happens through things like mathematics,
[21:07] Speaker 1: through great moral acts, through great acts of beauty, we
[21:13] Speaker 1: reach up beyond this world to a higher world. We
[21:17] Speaker 1: get in touch with a higher world. And you and
[21:19] Speaker 1: I have talked about that a lot, something as simple
[21:22] Speaker 1: as mathematics. When you grasp a mathematical truth and you
[21:26] Speaker 1: know it as true, you have left this world in
[21:30] Speaker 1: a very real sense. Or better, you've you've attained a
[21:34] Speaker 1: transcendent perspective because you're beyond the merely changeable, even acid
[21:39] Speaker 1: equality of this world. The same is true. I think
[21:42] Speaker 1: of love when you have really entered into that relationship
[21:46] Speaker 1: with another person, You've transcended this ordinary experience. It's a
[21:51] Speaker 1: deep mystery, but I think that's how we would handle
[21:54] Speaker 1: that problem of the loss of loved ones. They're not
[21:57] Speaker 1: really lost if if we we love them in God.
[22:03] Speaker 3: Let's turn out to that fourth and final challenge that
[22:06] Speaker 3: death poses to each one of us, namely that it
[22:08] Speaker 3: robs us of earthly joys. This gets back to the
[22:11] Speaker 3: Schwarzenarior comment. It seems that everything we love most is
[22:15] Speaker 3: on this side of death. You know, think of our
[22:17] Speaker 3: favorite pleasures, music, our relationships, experiences, joys. It's hard to
[22:23] Speaker 3: imagine any sort of afterlife without those things. So on Christianity,
[22:28] Speaker 3: how can the afterlife be better than this life when
[22:32] Speaker 3: it doesn't include those earthly joys?
[22:35] Speaker 1: What will? In a transfigured way? I've used that image
[22:38] Speaker 1: of you know, the circle becoming a sphere or the
[22:42] Speaker 1: square becoming a cube. It's not that the square is lost.
[22:46] Speaker 1: It's been brought up into a higher mode of existence.
[22:50] Speaker 1: It's been trends figured and elevated and enhanced in its being.
[22:55] Speaker 1: See the things of this world as sacraments of a
[22:58] Speaker 1: higher order, a higher goodness, a higher beauty. They're not
[23:03] Speaker 1: lost that they're transfigured, so that what we experience here
[23:08] Speaker 1: is an anticipation. So instead of saying like, Wow, wasn't
[23:12] Speaker 1: that great? But I'm going to die and so who cares?
[23:15] Speaker 1: Or I'm going to lose all this, say no, all
[23:18] Speaker 1: of this is but a hint of what's to come.
[23:21] Speaker 1: It's a sign of what's to come. You know, I
[23:24] Speaker 1: might have used this brand with you before, but it's
[23:26] Speaker 1: always truck me. As interesting is if you were to
[23:28] Speaker 1: talk to an eight year old kid about the joys
[23:32] Speaker 1: of let's say marital intimacy, right and what that means
[23:37] Speaker 1: in all of its senses physical, psychological, spiritual. The kid
[23:42] Speaker 1: wouldn't know what you're talking about. I mean, he has
[23:44] Speaker 1: no frame of reference for that. For an eight year old,
[23:46] Speaker 1: you know, the best day would be I saw a
[23:49] Speaker 1: fun movie and I had an ice cream cone and
[23:51] Speaker 1: my friends and I you know, horsed around it. That's it.
[23:54] Speaker 1: That's his frame of reference. And you were just say,
[23:56] Speaker 1: you know, there's actually something higher than all of that.
[24:00] Speaker 1: None of that's bad. All that's good. In fact, you
[24:02] Speaker 1: can keep doing that in a way. But but there's
[24:04] Speaker 1: a higher thing. Let me try to explain it to you.
[24:06] Speaker 1: The kid it what well? So think of heaven that way?
[24:10] Speaker 1: You know there's a higher good, but I can't begin
[24:15] Speaker 1: to fathom it here below. And even the sublimest goods
[24:19] Speaker 1: in this world are nothing compared to what's to come.
[24:23] Speaker 1: Eye is not seen, ear is not heard. That's literally
[24:25] Speaker 1: true right this. I can't see what God's planned This
[24:30] Speaker 1: ear can't possibly hear it. This year here is Beethoven's
[24:34] Speaker 1: seventh Symphony and finds it absolutely compelling. That's nothing compared
[24:39] Speaker 1: to what the ear will hear. You know, so I
[24:42] Speaker 1: would not look at it in terms of futility, but
[24:44] Speaker 1: in terms of sacramentality. That's how you experience the world
[24:48] Speaker 1: here below.
[24:50] Speaker 3: Lest we wind up with close here, I'd like to
[24:52] Speaker 3: ask how you recommend we prepare for death? Humans have
[24:57] Speaker 3: a one hundred percent mortality rate. We're all going night,
[25:00] Speaker 3: although most of us, other than maybe those on death row,
[25:03] Speaker 3: don't exactly know when exactly that day and time will be.
[25:07] Speaker 3: So what can we do here and now to prepare
[25:10] Speaker 3: for our deaths?
[25:12] Speaker 1: Think about it every day I do. And that's the
[25:14] Speaker 1: go back to a beginning of our conversation momento mouri.
[25:18] Speaker 1: Those are good practices and the Rosary, But when you
[25:22] Speaker 1: pray it, think about that very last phrase. Now and
[25:27] Speaker 1: at the hour of our death. Amen, Now and at
[25:30] Speaker 1: the hour of our death. As you say, there's a
[25:32] Speaker 1: one hundred percent chance we're all going to come to
[25:34] Speaker 1: the hour of our death. So you're placing that beautifully
[25:39] Speaker 1: within a sacred context. You're asking the blessed Mother to
[25:43] Speaker 1: intercede for you at that hour because likely that hour
[25:47] Speaker 1: you won't be able to intercede for yourself. That's the
[25:49] Speaker 1: beauty of it. You know, maybe maybe some people can
[25:52] Speaker 1: at the very last minute, but probably most of us
[25:55] Speaker 1: won't be able to. But again and again and again
[25:59] Speaker 1: and again and again, we keep asking, so maybe you
[26:02] Speaker 1: pray the Rosary with the special focus on that last phrase.
[26:15] Speaker 3: Well, it's time now for our question that we take
[26:17] Speaker 3: from one of our listeners. Each episode we play one
[26:20] Speaker 3: question for Bishop Baron. If you have one, send it
[26:22] Speaker 3: in to us at the website Askbishop Baron dot com.
[26:25] Speaker 3: Today we're hearing from Ben, who lives in Montana, and
[26:28] Speaker 3: Ben has a death related question.
[26:30] Speaker 1: Here.
[26:31] Speaker 2: It is.
[26:34] Speaker 4: Hi, Bishop Baron, this is Ben from Montana. I was
[26:37] Speaker 4: wondering what we as Catholics should think about or how
[26:40] Speaker 4: we should interpret near death experience stories. Thanks for all
[26:43] Speaker 4: your guidance and inspiration.
[26:46] Speaker 1: Guy's a good question. One thing I found when I
[26:49] Speaker 1: was doing pastor work full time is if you start
[26:52] Speaker 1: talking about or ask you about near death experience, they
[26:55] Speaker 1: come flooding out of people. And I think a lot
[26:58] Speaker 1: of people are a little bit ashamed or they're maybe
[27:00] Speaker 1: they're they're protective of how kind of precious that experiences,
[27:05] Speaker 1: so they don't talk about it. But if you just
[27:06] Speaker 1: scratch the surface out, they come out. They come. And
[27:10] Speaker 1: one thing is, you know, with the the rise of medicine,
[27:17] Speaker 1: you could say that people have fewer and fewer of
[27:18] Speaker 1: these things, you know, but I think there's something important
[27:24] Speaker 1: about them. You know, is the jury out in a way,
[27:28] Speaker 1: you know, completely understanding all the different types of new
[27:31] Speaker 1: death experiences. Yeah, you know, people say it's just a
[27:34] Speaker 1: it's a brain phenomenon, the dying brain produces these illusions
[27:38] Speaker 1: and so on. But it reads a Father Spitzer's book, Uh,
[27:42] Speaker 1: you know, the great Father Spitzer who writes a lot
[27:45] Speaker 1: about religion and science. He is some of the best
[27:47] Speaker 1: I think summation of these experiences and There are a
[27:52] Speaker 1: lot of them, Brandon, You and I both know that
[27:54] Speaker 1: it's very hard to explain them in terms of, you know,
[27:57] Speaker 1: brain phenomena.
[27:59] Speaker 3: Uh.
[28:00] Speaker 1: Some are so strange and so weird that people who
[28:03] Speaker 1: have died in a clinical sense experience all sorts of
[28:08] Speaker 1: things way outside their bodies, accurate descriptions of people and
[28:13] Speaker 1: events and buildings and places, and you know, blind people
[28:19] Speaker 1: who see for the first time, which are kind of
[28:22] Speaker 1: very hard to explain in terms of brain physiology. So anyway,
[28:26] Speaker 1: I think they're very intriguing. I wouldn't put full weight
[28:30] Speaker 1: on them, like boy, boy, there it is. There's the
[28:32] Speaker 1: you know, the clearer proof. But I think they're very interesting,
[28:36] Speaker 1: and to me, they're largely congruent with our sense of
[28:40] Speaker 1: of what happens to death. So I recommend Father Spitzer's book.
[28:45] Speaker 3: I'll include a show a link to that book in
[28:47] Speaker 3: the show notes. It's called The Soul's Upward Yearning Clues
[28:50] Speaker 3: to Our Transcending.
[28:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
[28:52] Speaker 3: And he's got an extensive section reflecting on these near
[28:55] Speaker 3: death experiences.
[28:57] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:57] Speaker 1: Good.
[28:58] Speaker 3: Before we go here, another new book from What on Fire.
[29:00] Speaker 3: This one launches today Monday, August fourteenth. It's titled Understanding
[29:04] Speaker 3: the Hill Billy Toomist the philosophical Foundations of Flannery O'Connor's
[29:09] Speaker 3: narrative Art, and it's by Father Damien Farrence, a long
[29:12] Speaker 3: time writer and friend of Word on Fire. Flari O'Connor
[29:16] Speaker 3: is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
[29:18] Speaker 3: Her novels and short stories are shockingly violent, absurdly comic,
[29:23] Speaker 3: spiritually potent. They continue to entertain and beguile people to
[29:27] Speaker 3: this day, but for many encountering them for the first time,
[29:31] Speaker 3: O'Connor's stories of backward prophets and outcasts feel strangely neolistic
[29:37] Speaker 3: and dark. But in this new book, Father Farence proposes
[29:40] Speaker 3: a more precise lens for decoding Flannery O'Connor's narrative art,
[29:45] Speaker 3: which originates in her own words about herself, namely the
[29:49] Speaker 3: title she gave herself as a hill Billy Toomist. The
[29:53] Speaker 3: author examines the various ways in which Saint Thomas Aquinas
[29:56] Speaker 3: and the philosophical tradition of Tomism shape not only Flannery's
[30:01] Speaker 3: view of reality but the stories that she told. So
[30:04] Speaker 3: check out this new book again. It's called Understanding the
[30:07] Speaker 3: Hillbilly Thomas. That's available from Word on Fire and I'll
[30:10] Speaker 3: include a link in the show notes. Well, thanks everyone
[30:14] Speaker 3: for watching and listening, and we'll see you next time
[30:16] Speaker 3: on
[30:16] Speaker 2: The Word on Fire Show

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