“Lord I have a death to die and not a death to choose.” So go the words to a hymn by the great English Catholic convert Fr. Frederick Faber. They imply that the attitude toward death that we must adopt in our prayers is simply this: “Thy will be done,” as the Savior himself has taught us and as he himself prayed in his agony.
Each day about 160,000 people die all over the world. How many of them are accompanied attentively by family and friends? How many believe in or receive the consolations of true religion? And how many Catholics make prayer for the dying a daily work of mercy?
Death may come in many, many ways. It may be sudden; it may be after a long illness; it may be peaceful and without struggle or with hours of gasping for breath. It may be full of fear or full of consolation. The malice of the devil may seek to cause terror or despair in the soul, or, even more horribly, to convince the sinner that he need not repent or seek the last sacraments. Even so, the angels are present to guide the soul and reassure it and protect it from evil on the way to the world to come.
Holy Church in her wisdom has united the now of this present moment with the certainty of our death as each day we pray many times, “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” This petition all by itself makes our daily rosary a treasure of grace, protection, and preparation for that most certain and significant moment of our lives. When the hour comes, we will not regret our effort to pray it. Faithfulness to the prayer of the rosary is a sure sign of a happy death.
In her services for the dying, the Church provides the model for the care of those in their last hour. In the first place are the holy sacraments, the so-called “last rites”: confession, anointing, the imparting of the Apostolic Pardon with the plenary indulgence, and Holy Communion if the dying person is capable of swallowing. Notice that nowhere in these does the Church teach us to pray not to die; rather, she teaches us to pray to die well!
Here are some models of prayer for the dying from the Church’s official ritual.
Are we allowed not only to pray for the dying, but to pray to die ourselves? The answer to this is a qualified “yes.” First of all, we not only may, but must pray for what Catholics call a “happy death”—that is, a death in the state of grace and assisted by the means of grace such as those already mentioned here. In addition to prayer for a good end of our lives in God’s favor, we may also pray for death in accordance with God’s will for the simple reason that we desire to live forever in God. “I want to be dissolved,” says St. Paul, “and be with Christ.” The supreme happiness of heaven is always preferable to any lesser good available to us in this life. Yet Paul added that living longer may be God’s will for him, as “fruitful toil.”
Growth in merit while we are living means a greater charity and so a more comprehensive possession of God in the vision of heaven. St. Teresa of Avila said that she would have been willing to endure a thousand lives more trying and difficult than her own, just to advance one degree higher in heavenly glory. Thus, she had a higher standard than her own release from the trials of this life—namely, the glory of God and her love for him. This is the way of the saints.
Of course, we can simply desire and pray for deliverance from bodily life with its pains for ourselves or our loved ones. Look at the laments of the prophets of the Old Testament who longed for death. This was not wrong. This is no sin at all, as long as it is with the intention of accepting God’s will. To desire death for a good reason is not a suicidal desire; it is simply reasonable under the circumstances. Suicide is irrational, taking our life on our own authority as though we were the sources and masters of our lives. Acceptance is the key. We can pray often, “O God, I accept now the death you have prepared for me with all the pains that may accompany it.” We can pray that our loved ones be spared a painful death agony. But once again, we must pray with the Savior in Gethsemane: “Not my will but thine be done.”
Indeed, all things being equal, it is more important to pray for a happy death than for full recovery. For example, we can understand why we might pray earnestly for a full recovery for a young person, or for a father or mother of a family on whom so many depend, but to pray for a full recovery for a person in extreme old age, who has run the race, runs contrary to kinder sentiments. It may be time, and it certainly soon will be!
What about people who are evil or who are harming us or those dear to us? Even here we can offer a qualified “yes.” It is a sin to wish death on someone out of hatred or passionate anger, yet we can hope to be spared the oppression of a tyrant or violent enemies who harm us and our loved ones. To wish death on someone is to wish an evil that we would not want done to ourselves. This is clearly against the commandment of love of neighbor and the most basic Golden Rule, to do to others as we would be done by. We must leave the matter in God’s hands. Thus, we do not have to mourn our oppressor’s death, but we may not murder him. (Now, legitimate self-defense is not murder, but even there we are to seek only to use lethal force if it seems necessary.)
In all just uses of force, it is not the death of our opponent we will so much as the defense and vindication of justice, which is in fact the true purpose of anger. Even wars are fought not precisely because we desire our enemy’s death, but so as to establish justice and to eliminate injustice. His death is desired only indirectly insofar as it may be unavoidable due to the nature of the conflict.
Instead of wanting to die, let us want to reach heaven, that prayer which is of all prayers to most in accordance with God’s will. In life or death, “thy will be done!”
Most of all, we should daily pray for the dying, especially to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death. Here is a short prayer for which there is a partial indulgence:
“Saint Joseph, true Spouse of the Virgin Mary, pray for us and for all the dying of this day (or night).”
For some deeper insight into this devotion for the dying, I recommend the little book by another English convert, the Venerable Mother Mary Potter, foundress of the Little Company of Mary, Devotion for the Dying. It is still in print and full of edification.