A Catholic Approach to Death

One of my favorite classes in seminary was a course called “eschatology.” That is a fancy Catholic word that describes the afterlife, and what we experience when we die.

Death, understandably, is something we don’t like to think about as humans. The elderly are sometimes placed on assisted living homes, for need, but so many live there with no one to visit them. Cemetery graves are also often forgotten. And even our culture might look at death and urge people to “get on” for our loved ones are “up there” with the angels or doing what they always wanted to do. The other extreme might say there is nothing at all, so just live for the moment and the day.

  So, what then is a Catholic to do with respect to death and the afterlife?

Having suffered loss as we all do, and also having celebrated hundreds of funeral Masses, I can assure you I do not have all the answers. I’ve been left without words. I’ve felt emotions of peace, but also sadness and even frustration – for how could this happen? But in this too, I’ve tried to come to a peace with a sense that while I do not have all the answers as to where I am journeying towards, God is with me, and that ultimately, things will be okay because Jesus has told us so – that we are not orphans, and that the Father has prepared for us a dwelling place in heaven.

With that in mind, I’d like to reflect on a few different things with our mortality; namely what do we believe as a Church with respect to the afterlife, and also how do we cope with the pain of loss in the here and now.

With respect to the afterlife, we believe in the “Four Last Things” namely death, judgment, heaven and hell. To this I’ll add a brief description of purgatory which is so often misunderstood.

We are reminded of death each Ash Wednesday with the ashes that call to mind our mortality and what we will return to. And this is important. We want to live in the world and for the moment, but also be living moving forward hopefully becoming better and better. We strive to live our lives growing in faith, hope and love. We take steps forward and steps back, but cooperating with grace, and being open to God’s love and mercy, we can live lives that make such a difference in leaving this world a better place than it was when we came into it.

This is where we face judgment when we die. The healthy Catholic spirituality is one where we recognize that God is not a tyrant like the big all powerful Oz who is there to scare us, but rather our actions have consequences. Did we do good with our lives? Works do not save us; grace does that. But our works are evidence of our faith. They are big and small; the meals we made for loved ones; the visits we made to people in need; the way we evangelized others and tried to spread the faith; the quiet labor we did every day to support a family; the forgiveness and compassion we showed. You add

them all up, and this is what God looks at. Ideally, we get to a point where we’ve loved God in a perfect way.

This leads us to Heaven; that is what All Saints Honors, the people in heaven, whose names are known to God. I truly believe I’ve known saints on my earthly journey; people who had a deep faith, but also a deep compassion and love for other people. Heaven is what eye has not seen and ear has not heard as Saint Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:9, where we are with God forever and have eternal happiness. There is no longer any barrier due to sin, because that’s completely gone.

So what then of purgatory? I think this can be misunderstood in that some have thought it to be some type of miserable place where a person “serves time” or something for their sins. Well remember, when we die we are outside of time. Rather, I think the best way to think of it is as those who are there are already in God’s love; and it’s not a matter of time, but a process, of God, using whatever means are needed, to help a person overcome any obstacles of the impacts of sin. If you think about it, how often do people go to confession but still struggle with the sins they confessed? Or how often do we say “I’ll stop doing this” but there were are, doing the things we hate? Paul even says as much, in Romans 7:15, saying he doesn’t understand why he does what he does but rather he does what he hates. How often that is us! So in purgatory, God helps us to get over the finish line so to speak. We pray for those there in that process. Of course those we pray for may already be in heaven; but not knowing that, we pray for the dead just as we pray for the living. In purgatory there is not so much pain as there is love; the only pain perhaps the pain of letting go of the things that were wrong in our lives that we need to finally be rid of entirely.

As far as hell, this is where it’s best to think of “thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer. God respects free will. And there are those who reject God entirely. Hell is the eternal frustration of a person who is there because they are separated from God, and live now with the consequences of that. Note however we do not say “this person is in hell.” It goes without saying there are those who have a tiny bit of the door open, and that is how God’s love gets in. Think of Saint Dismas, the “Good Thief,” who asks for mercy at the end of his life. On our part, I think we’ll be quite surprised who we meet in heaven one day.

One last word on those of us here on the journey: accept the range of emotions and embrace them. By that, what I mean is if you remember the Pixar film “Inside Out” the emotions at times felt some had to go, including sadness. But what Riley and her parents learn is that emotions all have a purpose. We can have happiness in the sense that we believe a person is in heaven, and warmth at the memories. But we can have sadness too, even if it’s been years since the loss. And it’s important to feel both. As I write this, I look at all my Christmas ornaments (yes, they are all up!). So many are made by my grandma Pat, who I lost over 20 years ago now. Others belonged to my grandparents Henry and Evelyn, both of whom I’ve lost and miss greatly. The manger is my godmother Gen’s, who I loved dearly and lost in 1997. Above the TV is a painted picture of Kirby, my beloved Golden Pyrnees who I lost in 2018. There will be no turkey shared together at Thanksgiving, no football watched with grandpa, no visits at Christmas. That is painful. But I truly believe I must allow myself to feel sadness, but also with that the peace of trusting there will be a reunion. There’s warmness in the past, but also hope for the future, and a connection; I believe they pray for me as I do for them. And I think about becoming a better man because of the holiness they all showed me with respect to putting faith into action. I hope you feel this too; knowing we have these emotions for a reason, while at the same time remembering the connection lasts forever and death doesn’t sever it – for Ash Wednesday was not the end, Easter is.

Have a blessed week, and remember, “Alleluia” is not just an Easter word!   ~Peace,  Fr. Paul

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October 2025