The Hour of Death

Metropolitan Augoustinos Kantiotes of Florina (+2010)

 

The hour of death, beloved, the moment at which the coexistence of soul and body is dissolved and the soul is separated and departs to the realms of eternity, holds something dramatic for most people. It resembles the moment when friends and relatives stand on the quay of the harbor and bid farewell with tears to their loved one, who boards the ocean liner and travels to a distant land. Their eyes are fixed on the traveler. After a while, neither he will be visible nor the ocean liner, which carries the travelers to the distant land, as it moves away from the shore and appears like a speck on the surface of the sea. And that speck will vanish! Yet no one doubts that the friend, whom we no longer see with bodily eyes, is alive; he lives and travels to reach the new land. His thoughts now center on one point: What, then, will he encounter there? Who will come out to greet him? Will he find a pleasant dwelling? Or perhaps, from the very first moment of disembarkation, will desolation and isolation spread around him?…

Similar are the thoughts of the one who is dying and departing into eternity. His spirit is troubled by the appearance of death. A certain fear seizes even the soul of the holy and the righteous—fear that, during the thorough examination of his earthly life, he might not be found upright before the Lord. Behold a saint, Saint Hilarion. From the fifteenth year of his age, he had withdrawn into the desert. There he lived a life of great austerity and repentance—not for one or two years, but for six decades and more. Fasting, praying, studying, mortifying his flesh, he placed his hope in the mercy of the Lord, who was sacrificed for us. And yet, when the moment came for him to close his eyes and depart into eternity, Hilarion cried out: “Go forth, go forth, my soul, why do you fear? Go forth, why do you hesitate? For nearly seventy years you have served the Lord. Do you still have reason to fear?”

And if the righteous and the holy man, despite the good testimony of his conscience and his firm hope in the mercy of the Lord, feels a certain awe at the hour of death—reflecting, on the one hand, on the deep sinfulness of human nature, and on the other, on the infinite holiness of God—what, then, must be the psychological state of the dying sinner who has done evil and never repented? If the righteous, according to Scripture, is scarcely saved, where shall the sinner appear? The hour of death for the unrepentant sinner, who never knew righteousness and mercy, but trampled upon corpses in order to erect upon them the statue of his self-worship, is terrifying. Death resembles a storm, which suddenly rushes upon the forest and uproots the proud tree that stood tall and stretched its branches toward all directions of the horizon.

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If you want examples, open History and see how the impious died. You will see how Herod died—the one who murdered the infants of Bethlehem and the surrounding regions. How Nero died—he who smeared the bodies of Christians with flammable substances so that, like torches, they would light the roads and squares of his capital by night. Read also how Decius, Domitian, Aurelius, Maximian, Galerius, Maxentius, and Julian the Apostate died—he who, as he was dying, hurled blood steaming from his palm and cried out: “Thou hast conquered me, O Nazarene!”

Studying the wretched ends of the lives of these bloodthirsty tyrants of humanity, both ancient and modern, we are convinced of how right Scripture is when it says: “The death of sinners is evil.” Yes. The death of sinners is evil and grievous. Evil not so much because, having killed without cause, they too are savagely killed by their enemies, according to the word of the Lord: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt. 26:52), but because the memory of their wicked deeds, their crimes, which pass at that moment like a motion picture rapidly through the mind of the dying man, are scorpions that sting, flames that burn, molten lead that makes the knees tremble and the jaws clash together.

And even if, according to the unsearchable counsels of God, the impious and unrepentant sinner does not die under tragic circumstances, but dies amid wealth and luxury and family happiness, still his death is not peaceful and serene. Do not look at his face; despite the outward calm, a storm shakes his inner being. He would prefer to die in a hut rather than in a mansion, every stone of which cries out: “You were unjust, a thief, a plunderer of orphans and widows.” He can no longer laugh or mock the one who utters the words: God, eternity, judgment, and recompense.

Truly. In the face of death, even the greatest unbeliever is shaken and wonders: could it be that those things he mocked all his life are realities? He resembles one who, in the depth of night, fell asleep carelessly on the ledge of a steep cliff, and as soon as the light of day dawned, he saw in terror the abyss into which, with a mere movement of his body, he would have plunged…

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My beloved! I ask your forgiveness, for I have troubled you with the thought of death, which is so repulsive to many people! But what can be done? I have fulfilled a duty. As a servant of  Christ the King, appointed to preach the truth to you, I have reminded you of that which the servant of Philip, the king of Macedonia, used to remind him of every morning, saying to him: “Philip! Remember that you are mortal.”

In every period of your life, remember that you are mortal. Myriads of graves of beloved persons cry out to you: “Where you are today, we once were. And where we are today, there you shall also come.” Consult the Gospel and prepare your provisions, your baggage, for the journey to eternity.

And allow me, before I finish, to pose to you a question: Are you in good standing before the Lord? Do you wish to die in the spiritual state in which you find yourselves today? Will your death be the death of a sinner who wets his bed with the tears of repentance, or will your death be the death of an unrepentant and impious man? What do you say? Do you not have hidden sins that you must confess? Have you not committed injustices that you must make right? Have you not neglected duties that you must fulfill as soon as possible, even at the last hour, at five minutes to twelve?

I desire that tonight you go to sleep uneasy, pondering these questions. This uneasiness is holy, because it will lead to the proper confrontation and resolution of the problem of life, and thus the beautiful, deeply meaningful prayer of our Church will be fulfilled also in us: “Let us ask for a Christian end to our life, painless, blameless, peaceful, and a good defense before the fearful judgment seat of Christ.”

 

Source: Όσιος Φιλόθεος της Πάρου [Saint Philotheos of Paros], no. 12, Orthodoxos Kypseli, p. 151.

Original Greek online: https://www.koinoniaorthodoxias.org/martiria-kai-didaxi/i-wra-tou-thanatou-2/