Conquering death is Easter message

GUEST EDITORIAL FR MICHAEL DOOLEY: In the last few weeks I have been closely involved with an uncle who has been dying.

In my ministry as a parish priest I am often involved in care of the dying.

But when it is a family member, an uncle who I have known all my life, then it carries a very personal impact.

My Uncle Kevin had led an energetic life and a sudden diagnosis of terminal cancer changed it all.

Lying in a hospital bed, his life seemed to be condensed into these last weeks of vulnerability.

A month ago he was working as a butcher in the freezing works; now the illness has sucked his energy away.

The care provided by the hospital services was very good, at first diagnosing the illness, then seeking to treat it and then alleviating the pain and providing palliative comfort.

Spending time with him I knew Kevin was at peace with the position he found himself in as he had to face the prospect of physical death.

The question I asked myself as I sat with Kevin was how would I respond if I was in the same position?  I have no clear answer how I would face the prospect of imminent death but Kevin’s example has given me hope.

Kevin had a quiet but strong faith that saw him trust that he was in God’s hands.  There were no complicated theological explanations involved in this, just a simple trust in God.

Some may call this attitude delusional, others may see it as a quaint, old-fashioned belief, but I saw it as a powerful expression of faith in the face of what we often fear the most — death.

The ravages of a cancer tumour may have ended Kevin’s physical life but it did nothing to stop the life of his soul from continuing on in trust and hope.It is a big claim made by us as Christians that Jesus conquered death.

Each year at Easter we recall the events that enabled us to make this claim.

Jesus was killed and left dead and buried in a stone tomb.  These are the historical events that we remember in our Easter story that comes around annually.

Despite happening in a small Middle Eastern town 2000 years ago, as a story it still fascinates us. We only need to see the success of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ to realise that the story of Jesus’ end, gory as it was, holds an attraction to many.

Seen strictly as a historic event, the death of Jesus is sadly familiar — it is one of many millions of such stories of death and suffering that have come about through human cruelty.

However, the death of Jesus ended up differently.

When my Uncle Kevin was dying, the person he felt connected to was Jesus and in particular the experience of death that Jesus went through.  It was a sad, cruel and unfair death inflicted on Jesus but it did not destroy him.

When annihilation and destruction seemed all that was left, Jesus came through in that brilliant moment of resurrection that changed everything. Death did not have the final answer, life did.

That is the message of Easter.

The death of Jesus happened half a world away and thousands of years ago and yet that death, hopeless as it seemed at the time, changed the world.

It is true to say that in our Western world, the practice of Christian faith has declined and people are not so sure about a belief in God.

However, again and again I come across people who live and die inspired by the Easter story of Jesus.

They face difficulties in life and their own death, remembering the promise of Jesus that they cannot be destroyed, that death does not have the final say.

It is a big claim to speak of conquering death.

But that is the message of Easter.

- Fr Michael Dooley is parish priest of Green Island and Mosgiel. On April 26 he will be ordained the seventh bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin.