The list of things reflective of the gradual but now quickening loss of the Catholic mind is long. Among the things demonstrative that Catholics no longer think like Catholics is the often expressed wish, “I hope I die a quick and painless death.”
Death can be scary, for sure, and I resist and avoid pain as much as the next wimp. But for as long as I can remember, a quick, unsuspecting, and painless death is the specter that haunts my dreams. I cannot count how many people I have heard express the wish, “I hope I die in my sleep.” When a Catholic expresses this wish, I shake my head and offer a prayer that their wish will go unfulfilled.
As Catholics, we should always keep in our prayers the intentions of the Pope. After reading a recent interview of Pope Francis with an Argentinian newspaper in which he addressed the threats to his life from ISIS, I found myself shaking my head, and offering a prayer that the Pope’s intention in this case, is not fulfilled.
Speaking to a tabloid newspaper in Buenos Aires nearly a year after the first ISIS plot to kill him was revealed, the pontiff opened up about the frightening possibility of being murdered in cold blood.
“Look, life is in God’s hands,” the pope told La Carcova News, according to the Italian newspaper Gazzetta del Sud.
“I have said to the Lord: take care of me. But if your will is that I should die or that they do something to me, I ask you one favor: that they don’t hurt me. Because I’m a real scaredy cat when it comes to physical pain.”
Now I understand full well that the Pope was not being terribly serious in his comment and likely sought to simply minimize the threat he faces while acknowledging that his fate is ultimately in God’s hands and not ISIS. But I think that his unfortunate expressed desire for a quick and painless death reinforces the secular notion that all pain is useless and should be avoided at all costs.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we know that our Lord and Savior turned this notion on its head when he willingly entered our world to suffer as we suffer so that we might live. We also know what Jesus said in Matthew 16, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.…”
For my part, I have always hoped to suffer consciously at my death, suffering sufficiently for the expiation of my many sins. To wish otherwise seems to be a denial of the need of expiation or presumption upon the mercy of God. That is not the way I wish to die.
Five years ago my brother lost his battle with a brain tumor. He suffered with the knowledge of his ultimate prognosis for seven years and over his last remaining months, he suffered physically and emotionally. Even when he lost his ability to speak, his eyes always told us that his mind was still with us. Through all of it he suffered, accepted, smiled, and prayed.
When he finally passed, I knew that God granted to my brother something much greater than a quick and painless death, a grace of inestimable value, the grace of a conscious, slow, and painful death. In many ways I think my big brother taught me life’s most valuable lesson. He taught me how to die well as his Lord taught him.
Patrick Archbold is co-founder of Creative Minority Report, columnist for The Remnant and a former columnist at the National Catholic Register. When not writing, Patrick is director of information technology at a large international logistics company. Patrick, his wife Terri, and their five children reside in Long Island, N.Y.
Patrick, this is an eloquent piece. However, I find I have real trouble with the idea of wishing suffering on one’s self or on another. Suffering certainly can be used in a meritorious way — as was so very much the case with your brother. We can and should celebrate that, and emulate it if suffering is our lot. However, Jesus Himself prayed to His Father to take the cup of suffering from Him if it be His Father’s will to do so. If Our Lord prayed to be spared suffering, I suspect it is perhaps not a particularly good thing to WISH for it.
Wrt the Holy Father’s jocular comment, like so many of his off-the-cuff quips it comes across as lamentably shallow regarding a matter whose spiritual implications are anything but shallow. One always hopes for something a bit better from a Pope. Maybe I should lighten up? [eyeroll]
Mr. Archbold’s article can stand on its own, but except for the quotation from Pope Francis, I’m sure he is not trying to say anything saints have not said before him. For example:
Fine, once you’re talking about your own suffering as a sacrifice, but wishing it on others?
That is pure sadism. Can you give me one example from the Carmelite tradition, Discalced or otherwise, where wishing suffering on others is seen as good thing? Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross?
I am not wishing suffering on anyone. I praying that all see the value of it and seek a good and holy death first.
Thérèse: “I know that Jesus could not wish useless suffering for us.”
Thank you for your reply, Mr. Wong. It seems to me that the point being made in
the quote you have provided is that suffering can, and doubtless ought to, be
viewed as a precious opportunity for the sufferer to collaborate intimately
with God. I see no incompatibility there with my response to Mr. Archbold’s post.
That God’s grace can bring good things from bad does not
make bad things good, is essentially what I was saying. I stand by that.
Rose – we welcome all reasonable discussion and disagreement here. The only comments being deleted were those designed to be offensive personal attacks.
We have enough suffering without having to go looking for it, I think. Redeem it when it happens, but I see no need to wish for it.
The Church requires some voluntary suffering, for example, in the forms of fasting and abstinence. I agree that for many of us there is enough and more than enough suffering, but for a few there is a desire for even more:
Probably, one should not seek suffering without spiritual direction.
I’m not sure that you understand what suffering really means. My aunt is dying as i type. She has suffered from end-phase dementia for the last 12 years. For the last ten years she has been in an essentially vegetative state. At no stage did anyone suggest that her death be hastened.
Are you seriously telling me that we, who love her, shouldn’t pray for a painfree, peaceful death for her?
You are free to make your own choice for yourself. To wish that someone else should have a painful death exposes you for what you are: a monster with no idea of what the love of Christ means. You, and the people who published your screed, should be ashamed of yourselves.
That is a willful and ridiculous misreading of my post.
.Really? I have been reading since way before you were born.
I have a degree from a University about 250 years older than the USA.
If you can’t articulate your thoughts, thats your problem. Strange that the other commenter on this article mis-read your article in the same way.
You Tea bagging “Traditional Catholics” seem to wallow in suffering, especially for other people.
Start reading the New Testament. Ayn Rand is so last year.
I’m in a smiting mood. Trashy comments like this don’t get to stay.
You don’t have the ability to sustain any argument. hope they don’t let you out by yourself. Can you tie your shoe-laces yet?
You are probably smart by Tea Bag standards. IQ around mid to high 70’s? Now, if you were REALLY smart, you’d be in St Louis helping Cardinal Burke with his Cappa Magna. But that would require an IQ of about 50!
Best wishes,
A Real Catholic
Nope. Sorry. Try again. You have to argue like an intelligent adult if you want to participate here.
God bless frrolfe and his aunt.
I work in a dementia ward. I have watched people I love die slowly over years, as the progressive nature of their disease takes them piece by piece. But during that time, these people are cared for, loved, and honored. There is laughter and joy along with pain. And I know that God takes them in His own time! Some have a quick death and some linger. The one thing they all give to us, the staff and their families is a lesson in love, charity and humility. Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy abound! The demented themselves DO suffer, but I always feel it is a mercy from God that they are given that suffering on earth because God is sparing them suffering after death. Their suffering is a GIFT that can only be understood from the perspective of eternity and from an infinite Love of a Creator who knows each soul most intimately.
It is OK to pray for a pain free peaceful death. But more important to pray for THE WILL OF GOD to be done in all things. Humility . . . is understanding that God knows best.
As a hospice nurse, I care for and pray for the dying and their loved ones and do my best to alleviate their suffering. My prayer (for myself as well as for others) is “From a sudden and unprepared death, deliver me, O Lord.”
Life on earth is physically and emotionally painful. Pain has degrees. From being uncomfortably sitting or standing for a long time or by doing anything, or even by having some thoughts.
And we all have daily pains, light pain in our hands, fingers, feet, back, pain when typing, when using a computer mouse or starring at the monitor or a TV for a long time, pain that happens every second and because it’s a common, daily pain nobody hardly notices it and don’t even call it “pain” or “suffering.”
So, once the degree of pain intensifies, let’s say due to an accident or illness, and if that pain persists for a long time, then it causes suffering.
My point is:
It really doesn’t matter what kind of death and what kind of pain one can go through, because at the end of the day, we will not realize how painful is this life and how much we suffered in it until we leave it.
We have nothing to compare our life here on earth with. But once we leave it and join the Eternal Repose, we will realize that whatever pain and suffering we went through is incomparable with the Joy and Comfort of Eternal Life.
So wishing for a quick or slow death, with or without suffering is meaningless and those who think that way, the least I could say about them is that they are ATHEISTS.
Sorry, Francis boy…
I too am praying for a quick and painless death since I am afraid I could fail due to my weak Faith. Anyways, God knows me better than I know myself. If I cannot withstand the pain on Earth, He will make me able to withstand it in the Purgatory.
God isn’t a sadic.
The saints longed to suffer. They did indeed look for ways to suffer. They wanted it for the right reasons, Expiation for sins, conversion of sinners, salvation of souls….etc… Now we dismiss their voluntary sufferings as the heathens did in their own days.
My mother suffered a long and painful bout with severe arthritis before her death, and now my father is suffering from dementia. I have suffered from depression for 30+ years. I don’t wish suffering on anyone and have begged God for a little relief from my mental pain.
Good luck
In my country there’s a phrase “Sudden death, sudden mercy” doing the rounds. Sounds a bit like a game show. It doesn’t correspond to any warnings in the Bible and there are numberous and frightful warnings there. people are afraid to whisper “purgatory”let alone “Hell”. For what its worth I’m glad you expressed it here because I don’t feel myself to be so freaky now.
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