Lord, Come Take Me by the Hand

Nicolas Diat

No one chooses his end. Today the problem of sedation is serious. We have to fight against intolerable sufferings. But if we do not feel pain anymore, life goes away. Now, with the progress of analgesics, we no longer feel anything. We no longer feel life. We no longer feel humanity. We no longer feel God approaching. Man becomes an abstract machine....

 Fear is a bad counselor. It is the ultimate antithesis of faith. Our materialistic society has an irrepressible obsession with pain. Why has our world forgotten that life does not exist without suffering?

Brother David said: When I am face to face with the Grim Reaper, I might not have the courage to look at him. But I do not see him as a threat. Death is a passage toward Christ. I hope that the Son of God will come to take me by the hand.

A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Death