Category: Death
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St. Thomas More
About the Author: Long before his own martyrdom, the great humanist thinker Saint Thomas More (1478 – 1535) was enjoying great worldly success at the court of King Henry VIII. But shortly after he was made a knight, in 1522, More wrote his short book On The Four Last Things. More commends those who look on…
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John 11: 17-27
17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Laz′arus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary…
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The Apostolic Blessing at the Point of Death
About the Author: Fr. Matthew Hardesty is a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, KY. He earned Sacred Theology Bachelors and Master of Divinity degrees from St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, MD in 2011. He has held the positions of Assistant to the Vicar for Priests, founding Chaplain of the Archdiocese’s Courage Chapter,…
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Justin Martyr on why Christians don’t kill themselves if they think Death is not to be feared
About the Author: St. Justin Martyr is one of the principal witnesses to the beliefs and practices of Christians in the second century. Justin was a Platonist philosopher from Palestine who wrote two apologies, that is, defences of the faith. The first apology was addressed to the Roman Emperor himself, Antoninus Pius, and the second…
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Stewarding Death on the Homestead
About the Author: Mark Kutolowski lives with his wife and three children at Metanoia of Vermont, a lay Catholic homestead guided by the spirituality of Saint Benedict. metanoiavt.com “Thank you, Dimitri, for the gift of your life.” I speak the words softly to the 90 pound lamb I’m holding. I have him up on his…
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Saint Paul on Dying with Christ
About the Story: The good news of the Gospel seems to have raced to Rome, and soon Saint Paul (c. 5 – c. 64/65 AD), the Apostle to the Gentiles, wrote them one of his great letters. Here in Romans 6:1-14, Saint Paul explains what Christians should believe about death and about life. 1 What shall…
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Introduction to Tradition Magazine, Issue Two: Death
Here we are again slipping into winter, and for most of the natural world, winter is a time of dying. Many animals will not survive the winter: the ones who are too old, the ones who are too young, the foolish, the unlucky, the squirrel who has forgotten where he hid the nuts. It’s no…
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Athenagoras on the details of the Resurrection
About the Author: Christianity teaches that the dead will rise again in a physical resurrection. This is a comforting doctrine, but right from the start Christians realized that it raises philosophical questions as well. How does a resurrection work? If we get back the same bodies that we had, how can we account for the…
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Sonnet 13
About the Author: William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was active in the years after Catholicism became illegal in England. Part of the case that he was a secret Catholic ties Shakespeare to Saint Thomas More. In Shakespeare’s official plays, More is almost written out, but Shakespeare and other authors collaborated on a play about Saint…
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How Death came into the World
About the Story: In the first pages of Genesis (3:1-19) we encounter the story of original sin, precipitated by Eve’s encounter with the strange figure of the serpent in the garden. This can be no ordinary serpent. Snakes don’t talk, and they also don’t tempt people, and we are not original in viewing the serpent as a…