The reality of life is that it concludes with death. How does the faith give us a proper perspective on the meaning of death? Since we all have to die, how can we make our death be meaningful, how can our death symbolically (and actually) represent our dedication to something? Though Christians around the world today still sadly face the reality of martyrdom, we in the western world are often not in danger of this. But many of us are still called to live a so-called “white martyrdom. What do you

Jun 28, 10:40 AM

vis (Guest): What do you suppose this means? And how can we live it out?

 

Jul 1, 7:35 PM

Judy (Guest): Oh well, I’ll start with question 1: Our perspective on death comes from our faith, belief in the teachings of Jesus:In My Father’s house there are many mansions.I go to prepare a place for you. His promise to the good thief:this day you will be with me in Paradise.He who eats my flesh and drings m blood had eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.

Jul 1, 7:37 PM

Judy (Guest): In 1 Cor. 15:22, Paul tells us:Just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life. And in Rom. 6:8 “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall alos life with Him.

Jul 1, 7:37 PM

VisitationSiste: Yes, so well thought out, and Jesus’ own “Into your hands I commend my spirit” on the cross

Jul 1, 7:38 PM

Judy (Guest): We have been given so many reasons to believe in eternal life and to look forward to it.

Jul 1, 7:38 PM

Carol Ann: this knowledge and belief is part of what makes us human. Koko, the gorilla who spoke sign, knew of mortality and of her own mortality, but apparently no one ever thought to ask her about God!

Jul 1, 7:40 PM

Ruth (Guest): Interesting Carol Ann. I wonder if anyone ever tried to teach her about God or about the belief in life after death.

Jul 1, 7:40 PM

Carol Ann: We have more reason to believe than not. I suspect people who wish to believe there is nothing after life are among those who accept no authority but their own

Jul 1, 7:40 PM

VisitationSiste: or reject God due to pain and loss in their lives

Jul 1, 7:41 PM

Judy (Guest): Perhaps Koko might be able to learn about the existence of God, but she cannot have a personal relationship with Him.

Jul 1, 7:41 PM

Carol Ann: I don’t know Ruth (Hi!). There’s plenty of archived material discussing all sorts of abstract thinking, and she even taught her baby doll toys sign language, but i can find nothing about faith or God.

Jul 1, 7:41 PM

Judy (Guest): Hi Ruth!

Jul 1, 7:41 PM

Carol Ann: I don’t know. I expect we’ll find out for sure when we get to heaven.

Jul 1, 7:42 PM

VisitationSiste: Welcome Ruth!!

Jul 1, 7:43 PM

Ruth (Guest): I met a man today who thought that it was a cruel joke that dogs live only about 10 years but humans can reach 100 years. Even his own mother is102. He’s been through 6 labrador retrievers.

Jul 1, 7:44 PM

VisitationSiste: Dignity of our death depends on our unity with the Lord

Jul 1, 7:45 PM

Carol Ann: If we are united to Him, asking for His mercy and grace, there is no need for that final despair, though i think we must fight hard spiritually to remember that

Jul 1, 7:45 PM

Judy (Guest): Question 2: For our death to be meaningful, our life must first be meaningful. We must have lived with the habit of charity, but also in the act and practice of charity-lvoing God, neighbor and virtue.

Jul 1, 7:46 PM

Ruth (Guest): I suggested that it might be so that we will look forward to heaven. And that I’ve heard some people claim that if a dog is essential to a particular person’s happiness, there may even be dogs in heaven!

Jul 1, 7:46 PM

VisitationSiste: The saints died beautiful deaths spiritually and it is interesting to read about their last days, sentiments and words

Jul 1, 7:47 PM

Carol Ann: yes, because i think they sometimes got peeks at the other side, and were excited to finally get there

Jul 1, 7:47 PM

Judy (Guest): How could it be otherwise for those who have acquired holiness and lived fully in the love of God.

Jul 1, 7:48 PM

Ruth (Guest): Yes. I wonder if we don’t all get some sort of a “peek” at the other side.

Jul 1, 7:48 PM

VisitationSiste: Yes and they are our models of hope

Jul 1, 7:48 PM

Carol Ann: Ruth, i think we are opening up a whole nother topic, so i will just say i will not be surprised to see all animals there

Jul 1, 7:49 PM

Judy (Guest): The saints are also models of living in the act of love, of lives of total self-giving.

Jul 1, 7:49 PM

Ruth (Guest): Maybe not enjoying the Beatific Vision, but just being who/what they are.

Jul 1, 7:50 PM

VisitationSiste: Faith gives us the perspective that our whole lives were leading up to Eternal Life

Jul 1, 7:51 PM

Judy (Guest): I need to ask myself if I am living in the act of love, and if I am truly living a life of total self-giving,

Jul 1, 7:52 PM

Carol Ann: yes, it can be a great spiritual exercise to look back and seek where God has been active in our lives, and the more we look, the more we will see. And know that since He has done it before, He will keep doing it

Jul 1, 7:52 PM

Judy (Guest): As Paul says,The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Jul 1, 7:52 PM

Ruth (Guest): Yes, Carol Ann, the devotion of that old lab sure has a good deal in common with the love shown by people . . . But I never heard of a dog lifting his heart and mind to God.

Jul 1, 7:53 PM

Carol Ann: that’s because i switched topics and was talking about people again

Jul 1, 7:54 PM

Carol Ann: http://www.koko.org/node/1023 this is a cool picture. no explanation of why they called it God Light

Jul 1, 7:54 PM

VisitationSiste: God looks at our hearts. If we are dedicated to Him we are pointed in the right direction because He is our eternity

Jul 1, 7:57 PM

Ruth (Guest): Great photo, Carol Ann. I’ve often seen light shining through trees, but the wild roses (if that what those flowers are, not Hibiscus?) make that one extra special. That it was taken by Koko, is very interesting. One Christian writer suggested that if . . . then we might have to baptise apes!

Jul 1, 7:57 PM

Judy (Guest): It is an awesome thing to consider that we will spend eternity in the company of the Holy Trinity, our Holy Mother and all the saints. Imagine the joy!

Jul 1, 7:57 PM

Ruth (Guest): But shouldn’t they be evangelized first?

Jul 1, 7:57 PM

VisitationSiste: Beyond imagining!

Jul 1, 7:58 PM

Carol Ann: I’m sorry, i keep dragging us off topic, because it’s just too fascinating to me. but what is the white martyrdom we are called to?

Jul 1, 7:59 PM

Ruth (Guest): LOL. We don’t even effectively evangelize PEOPLE – not even the 70% of Catholics who don’t attend church regularly.

Jul 1, 8:00 PM

Judy (Guest): White martyrdom is a bloodless martyrdom which my come from illness, or any godily or mental suffering, from ill treatment by others, deprivation of necessities of life, mockery of others, abandonment by family or friends, defamation of character.

Jul 1, 8:00 PM

VisitationSiste: I think it is the total gift of ourselves to God and the possible separation interiorly of all else that was dear to us, important to us. Only God, God alone

Jul 1, 8:01 PM

Ruth (Guest): I hope I planted a little seed to the very wealthy (by ordinary standards) man whose home I was – today unexpectedly – guest in. His Columbian wife invited me to come swim at their lakeside home.

Jul 1, 8:01 PM

Ruth (Guest): Driving up to it I spontaneously began singing the old song “We

Jul 1, 8:01 PM

Judy (Guest): may come from, bodily or mental suffering

Jul 1, 8:01 PM

Carol Ann: so every time we are falsely accused, when we are mocked for our faith, that is a white martyrdom?

Jul 1, 8:02 PM

Judy (Guest): Yes, I believe so.

Jul 1, 8:02 PM

Carol Ann: or if we have chronic depression, or scars from the past that don’t heal, we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ?

Jul 1, 8:02 PM

Judy (Guest): Indeed!

Jul 1, 8:03 PM

VisitationSiste: as long as we offer all or endure all for Christ

Jul 1, 8:03 PM

Carol Ann: then a lot of us here tonight are particularly blessed with white martyrdom, if only we approach it properly

Jul 1, 8:03 PM

Ruth (Guest): We’ll make our heaven on earth, just a heaven for two.

Jul 1, 8:04 PM

VisitationSiste: I think so Carol Anne

Jul 1, 8:05 PM

Ruth (Guest): Yes, Carol Ann, it seems to me LIKELY that the more completely we give ourselves to the Lord, and try to live the Gospel in a world so full of sin, we are at least in little ways and maybe in big ways called to “white martyrdom.

Jul 1, 8:05 PM

Judy (Guest): Here we have that problem of the spirit being willing and the flesh being weak. Sometimes I am totally accepting of my problems, and other times I feel that i can no longer bear them. And I tell the Lord so.

Jul 1, 8:05 PM

VisitationSiste: We can live this out day by day just as St jane de Chantal did

Jul 1, 8:06 PM

Judy (Guest): How did she do it?

Jul 1, 8:07 PM

VisitationSiste: By recognizing her weakness and depending on God, His forgiveness and following St Francis’ suggestion to keep picking herself up

Jul 1, 8:09 PM

Ruth (Guest): And he HEARS you Judy; if he does not take away the illness, he strengthens you to bear it and with it to model that acceptance for others. It is even possible that all the work you do – preparing instructions, etc. is far more effective BECAUSE of your evident difficulties walking. . .

Jul 1, 8:09 PM

Carol Ann: in uniting ourselves to Him, He helps us find ways to use our sufferings as blessings for others

Jul 1, 8:10 PM

VisitationSiste: I will watch the video later I wonder what the gorilla iq is

Jul 1, 8:10 PM

Judy (Guest): Carol Ann, you certainly do have a great affinity for gorillas!

Jul 1, 8:11 PM

Carol Ann: oh, i don’t know! but he has memories of his own childhood and can relate them, now that we figured out how to talk to him.

Jul 1, 8:11 PM

Carol Ann: all animals really. too much for us here, but some day ask me about the hawks and the horses, and the tomato-thievin’ squirrel

Jul 1, 8:12 PM

VisitationSiste: a different kind of chat!

Jul 1, 8:12 PM

Carol Ann: at least now it’s clear why I think there are animals in heaven!

Jul 1, 8:12 PM

VisitationSiste: St Francis de Sales like his patron from Assisi really loved creation We could spin off from that!

Jul 1, 8:12 PM

Carol Ann: Franciscan

Jul 1, 8:13 PM

Judy (Guest): I would be more inclined to ask you these things in a personal e-mail rather than in the chat.

Jul 1, 8:14 PM

Carol Ann: yes, with all my affinity for the Interior Castle, it was the birds and animals on the monastery grounds that communicated with me. Did you know that deer like music?

Jul 1, 8:14 PM

Carol Ann: so maybe I’m some blend of Carmelite and Franciscan?

Jul 1, 8:16 PM

VisitationSiste: I guess we exhausted tonight’s topic!

Jul 1, 8:16 PM

Judy (Guest): Certainly your life as a follower of John Michael would lead to you to be more Franciscan.

Jul 1, 8:17 PM

Carol Ann: yes, and John Michael is also a great believer in interior silence and the Jesus prayer, as well as contemplation

Jul 1, 8:17 PM

Judy (Guest): Yes, Mother, I think we might have done that.

Jul 1, 8:18 PM

VisitationSiste: All spiritualities are Gospel based so these different Orders are emphasizing different points of the faith

Jul 1, 8:18 PM

Ruth (Guest): Martha – my hostess today – is very devout, but I had never seen her husband at Mass. He knew the old song I sang as I drove up to their gorgeous home; and maybe it represented HIS view of life. But this too, shall pass. And I thought his connection with dogs who passed through his life might be an “opening” for evangelization. He said he enjoyed my visit. Just politeness?

Jul 1, 8:18 PM

Carol Ann: funny how talking about heaven and preparing ourselves for it led me into talking about animals

Jul 1, 8:19 PM

Carol Ann: i don’t think so Ruth, pray and discern carefully when and how to speak to him

Jul 1, 8:20 PM

Ruth (Guest): Can this topic ever be exhausted? Even if we are exhausted. It’s just that you and Judy are better at sticking more closely to it than I am or maybe Carol Ann is.

Jul 1, 8:21 PM

VisitationSiste: Good point!

Jul 1, 8:22 PM

Ruth (Guest): Yes Carol Ann, I shall try.

Jul 1, 8:23 PM

VisitationSiste: Hi Vis Editor all worked out well

Jul 1, 8:25 PM

Judy (Guest): Let us all try to immerse ourselves more deeply into the Lord so that we will live more surely in His will. I ask Him to absorb me so that I may be lost in Him.

Jul 1, 8:25 PM

Ruth (Guest): Martha’s devotion is so simple. Since she can no longer do what she was addicted to – triathalon athletics – she now “has to” travel with her husband every winter in their LUXURIOUS “coach” a home on wheels because he gets depressed here in the winter.

Jul 1, 8:25 PM

Carol Ann: Amen, what a lovely thing to do Judy.