The sardonic observation that nothing in this world is certain except for death and taxes is usually attributed to the eighteenth-century polymath, Freemason and American Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin. Some of those rich enough to afford expensive accountants actually do quite an impressive job of avoiding taxation. The pursuit of immortality, meanwhile, has apparently become a popular subject of conversation among the sort of billionaire “philanthropists” and their star-struck groupies who annually descend on the Swiss canton of Graubünden in fleets of private jets to bemoan the evils of carbon emissions and inequality. Not long before the Coronavirus struck, a lifestyle feature appeared in the Guardian with the fascinating title “How to live forever: meet the extreme life extensionists”. The article introduced its readers to James Strole, a businessman from Arizona and founder of something called the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, which promotes initiatives aimed at prolonging human life “not by days and weeks, but by decades and even centuries, to the degree that mortality becomes optional – an end to The End”. The Coalition's promotional literature is bullish: “The deathist paradigm has to go... It's time to look beyond the past of dying to a future of unlimited living”. It describes its supporters as “early adopting advocates, numbering in the thousands”. The Guardian article informs us that the community of life-extensionists “includes venture capitalists and Silicon Valley billionaires [...] who consider death undesirable and appear to have made so much money they require infinite life to spend it”.
We should pray that it will not be long before Christian missionaries penetrate into the darkest depths of Silicon Valley to proclaim to its indigenous tribes the Good News that “the deathist paradigm” has in fact already been long dead and buried. It was conquered definitively between the first Good Friday and the Easter Sunday that followed it, two millennia ago in Jerusalem. And while immortality does not come cheaply – it was paid for in a currency of infinite value, the Precious Blood of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus on the Cross – it is offered freely to all to seek it with a contrite and humble heart. The Catholic Church has been in the business of offering the world the option of “unlimited living” ever since that first Easter Sunday. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we die with Christ and are buried with Him. Emerging from the waters of regeneration, we are raised from the tomb with Our Lord, and filled with everlasting life. At the font, we receive the vocation to keep dying to ourselves in this life so that the Life of the Resurrection might take ever greater possession of our souls. At the Altar we are able to unite ourselves daily with the Death of Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and to partake of His Living Risen Body in Holy Communion. Thanks to the Resurrection, and to our participation in the Resurrection through the Sacraments, life has the last word over death for eternity.
Those looking for a solution for the problem of death would do well to examine how death became a reality in the first place. Never intended for us by our Creator, death entered the human story only after our first parents allowed themselves to be beguiled by the false promises of the Father of Lies. Tempting Eve to take the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Serpent assured her that she and Adam would be like God and never die. The opposite was true. Owing to the breach of faith occasioned by that first sin, the immortality and supernatural likeness with which our first parents had been endowed were forfeited for humanity. The consequences included suffering, sickness and, most radical of all, the separation of body and soul which is death. We need to learn our lesson that when men try to usurp the place of God, the outcome is never pretty.
During this month of November, our minds are lifted to contemplate the reality of everlasting life, first of all on the great feast of All the Saints, those who have died in Sanctifying Grace and whose souls are already in Heaven, enjoying the Beatific Vision and awaiting the restoration of their bodies at the end of time. They have such a capacity for love that they are granted an eternity to share it and to participate in God's glory. They intercede for us at the Throne of Grace, and invite us to friendship with them so that they might provide us with particular assistance in our needs. The following day, we commemorate the Souls of the Faithful Departed. We call them the Holy Souls, because they died in the State of Grace and their place in Heaven is assured. In this sense they are better off than us, because on earth we must work out our salvation in fear and trembling. But they are also the Poor Souls, because they suffer in Purgatory until they are perfectly purified for entry into Heaven. The Church teaches that we may speed them on this journey, with celebrations of the Holy Mass, by our sacrifices and prayers and through the gaining and application of Holy Indulgences, and that this is a great act of charity. The black vestments and unbleached candles of All Souls really set the tone for this month. Let us remember to pray for the Holy Souls, in the assurance that the Saints are interceding for us, and give thanks that death has been conquered by love.
Father Julian Large