A Lifetime of Work and a Moment of Death

After the sixties music expanded our minds, and before disco and stadium rock dominated the airwaves, the singer-songwriter genre took a firm hold in the pantheon of popular music. Songs were written and sung that dealt with a wide spectrum of feelings and emotions, including the death of a loved one. Facing one’s own mortality, however, as in “But I Might Die Tonight” was (and is) rarely addressed in a song

I don’t want to work away
Doing just what they all say
Work hard boy and you’ll find
One day you’ll have a job like mine, job like mine, a job like mine
Be wise, look ahead
Use your eyes he said
Be straight, think right
But I might die tonight! (Cat Stevens)

Mr. Stevens (now Yusef Islam) refers to scripture, perhaps unintentionally, in writing about an exchange between father and son on the subject of “putting your nose to the grindstone” with an eye toward security later in life. The notion of working hard and “looking ahead” to a comfortable retirement is dispelled in this account from the Gospel according to Luke:

Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. “And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God (Luke 12:16-34).

The tension that exists between the concept of looking forward to a long, productive life here on Earth and dying in a matter of hours can only be held in check through prayer. There is a certain pragmatism involved with the notion of spending quality time in the present instead of saving for a future that might not happen. A humorist once said, “live each day as though it were your last, and one day you’ll be right!” A Christian re-working of this could be, “live each day as though you were about to meet Jesus, and one day you’ll be right”. St. Paul explains the difference between our “earthly tent” and the dwelling that awaits us in Heaven:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling— if indeed, when we have taken it off[a] we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5-6)

The length of our life on Earth, along with the exact details of death are known only to God and are largely unavailable to us. We do, however, have a glimpse of our individual, personal encounter with Christ at the moment of death:

Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately, —or immediate and everlasting damnation. At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love (CCC1022).

Let us pray for the grace to be ready to meet the Lord in the evening of His choosing, and judged to be worthy of the blessedness of Heaven.