So Far… So Good!

A popular stand-up comedian humorously quipped: “I intend to live forever… and so far, so good.”

In the classic, best-selling book entitled “On Death and Dying,”1 the author traces five distinct stages persons with terminal disease go through in facing death:

1) A period of denial. Inability to accept the fact of death. A “No, it can’t be true” attitude.
2) A period of anger. “Why me?”
3) A period of bargaining. A promise to do something in exchange for an extension of time.
4) A period of depression.
5) A final stage of acceptance and resignation.

Terminal illness, however, is a relative matter, for death is what we are all facing. And the comedian’s humorous perspective notwithstanding, of course from the time we leave our mother’s womb, we all begin to die.

In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus is taking us beyond those five stages of death into a sixth stage. Already, we know that the fact of…