Vigils Reading – Office of the Dead

FEAR AND HOPE

From the writing of Michael Schmaus2

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To understand God’s call as one of love does not do away with the

awesomeness of death; even the faithful anticipate it with fear. Indeed, the

element of fear in the believer is liable to be stronger than in the atheist or

nihilist, who has resolved to his own satisfaction the problem of what comes

after death and is chiefly disturbed by the knowledge the one must abandon a

work which one has begun, leaving something unfinished. The believer,

however, sees in death the moment of encounter with God, that moment

towards which the person has been journeying, in an anticipation never free of

tension, during one’s whole lifetime. As the person awaits the judgment God

will pronounce, anxiety can be overcome only in a loving confidence. The

death of the faithful Christian is a death in the Lord. It is a death which will not

bring condemnation, since no one who lives and has faith in Christ will ever

die.

Although God is an impenetrable mystery, the person of faith perceives

the meaning of the divine summons in a way that prevents one from falling

into despair. When the time had come for him to take leave of his disciples,

Christ said: “Trust in God always; trust also in me.” In that hour Christ gave

his own assurance that they would have life, and have it abundantly. He never

promised them an untroubled existence within time, but only a life of joy in

God. Thus anxiety is changed into tremulous expectation: the Lord comes. In

the First Letter of John, Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples to have confidence

in the Father and in himself is made explicit when he says: “There is no room

for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear. For fear brings with it the pains of

judgment, and anyone who is afraid has not attained to love in its perfection.”

So, in the face of death, there remains to everyone only trust and hope with

which to meet the unavoidable fear of death.

2 Dogma 6, Justification & the Last Things. Michael Schmaus, Sheed & Ward, 1977, pp.220-221.5