Death has taken a prominent place in the headlines this past year, as in the public consciousness.
Daily death counts are now part of every day’s news.
The New York Times has a series called “Those We’ve Lost” with obituaries of some who have died of COVID, in an attempt to put faces and names to the increasing numbers of the dead.
With death all around us, it is an opportune time to ground ourselves deeply in the truths of the faith about death, to give us a solid foundation for our own responses to the next tragic report.
Because of the sorrowful death and glorious Resurrection of Our Lord, the Christian tradition is rich in resources reflecting on death.
But these resources are scattered across many centuries and languages, both of which can be barriers to us as Christians today.
Christian meaning of death
That is why Scott Hahn’s and Emily Stimpson Chapman’s recent book, Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body, (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2020) is so timely.
By gathering up the Biblical, patristic, and contemporary Catholic teaching on death and reflecting on it in such an accessible way, this book makes the riches of the Church available to a broader swath of Catholics.
It offers a truly hopeful contrast to the recent headlines.
Hope to Die is not just timely, but also timeless, insofar as death has been with the human family nearly from the beginning so that almost all of us are touched by the death of a loved one before we meet our own death.
Scott Hahn has a knack for anecdotes that raise good questions.
His mother’s skepticism, expressed after Dr. Hahn preached about the resurrection of the body at his grandmother’s funeral, focuses our attention on that article of the Creed that we recite every Sunday: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”
Drawing out the implications of this belief is the whole point of the book.
Perhaps the clearest implication is (spoiler alert!) the strong preference of Catholics throughout history for burial rather than cremation.
Along the way, Dr. Hahn guides readers through the characteristics of the glorified body (Will we be able to walk through walls?), discusses whether eternity gets boring, and explains why the remains of some saints do not get buried.
Caring for the dead and evangelization
Here in the Diocese of Madison, in light of the “Go Make Disciples” Evangelization Initiative, I was particularly interested in Dr. Hahn’s discussion of how care for the dead fueled the spread of Christianity in the early centuries.
Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Roman Emperor and no friend of Christians, bemoaned the advance of Christianity in his Letter to Arsacius (c. A.D. 360).
Julian blamed the rise of Christianity and the decline of paganism on Christians’ kindness to strangers, burial of the dead, and sobriety of lifestyle.
This reinforced for me that our choices regarding funerals and burials have a role to play in evangelization. And as devout Christians are becoming fewer in number, our care for our dead will contrast more and more favorably with the secular practice that leaves many cremated remains abandoned or scattered.
For me, this book was professional development, but I believe it is also very appropriate for the general Catholic reader, particularly for Lenten reading, or as a November book of the month.
The Catholic Cemetery Conference, of which I am a member, has worked with Scott Hahn on a video-based in part on his book. In his inimitable style, Dr. Hahn offers rapid-fire theological and practical insights that stand on their own and set the stage for benefitting from his book.
This four-minute video can be seen at www.madisondiocese.org/Hahn where there is also a link for those who would like to buy the book.
Damian Lenshek is the director of cemeteries for the Diocese of Madison.
This article originally appeared in the issue of The Diocese of Madison Catholic Herald.