The Universal Fear

Gospel: John 12: 24-26

People have particular fears: snakes, spiders, clowns, heights, the dark.  What all of these fears has in common is the fact that there is a deeper fear underlying them, one that is common to every human being - and that fear is death.  Death is the one topic never discussed, the one topic energetically avoided.   Death is also the one thing we will all experience; it is the one unavoidable appointment in our life.

Before our own deaths we all experience the death of many people in our lives - family members, friends, co-workers.  All of these deaths affect us in greater or lesser degrees.  They force us to consider our own mortality, to face death directly for ourselves.  The Christian who pays heed to the death of the martyrs and other saints continually confronts death and the meaning of one's own life - that death is the ultimate foregoing of one's ego, self-interest, and our notions of self.  

Authentic religion and spirituality invites us to forego our ego, self-interest, and self on a daily basis - to die spiritually long before we die physically.  This spiritual death leads to an inward rebirth into a new identity and understanding, one that prefigures the new life after physical death that is the hope of our faith life.  The ancient slogan "Memento mori!" must once again be ours each day in our spiritual journey to death and beyond.