Walking with St. Paul Seven Ways to be a Paul-bearer, Part VII

Aug 18, 2008

The seventh way to be a Paul-bearer during this Jubilee Year is to persevere to the end.  Again, our model is St. Paul.

At the close of his life, St. Paul reflects on his own death in his second letter to St. Timothy.  The final words of a dying person merit our careful attention, and biblical figures often leave parting words of great import.  This is done by Jacob (in the closing chapters of Genesis), Moses (in the end of Deuteronomy), St. Peter in his epistles (esp. 2 Peter), and by Christ himself on the Cross.

Second Timothy was likely written from the Mamertine prison in Rome where St. Paul awaited his martyrdom, along with St. Peter.  With certain death at the door, he writes, “As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation (a drink offering), the time of my departure (Exodus) has come.” He follows these sober words with some of the most famous ever written, “I’ve fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:6-7).  Would that we all could utter these simple lines near the close of our life.  I can think of little more that I would like said at my eulogy or inscribed on my tombstone. 

This Jubilee Year may be our last one on earth.  I don’t mean to be morbid, but the reality is we should be prepared to meet death at any moment, and likely some of the people reading this blog will leave this world in 2008.  The often unexpected appearance of death was brought home to me in a profound way last May.  As part of a class I was teaching on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I created a homework assignment on the Sacrament of Christian Burial.  One of the questions I asked my students to answer was, “A great theologian once remarked that the most urgent task we have in life is to learn to die well.  With this in mind, how can we prepare for our own death?”  One of my most conscientious students, a young woman, hand wrote a thoughtful response to that question.  As it was the last class, she dropped the homework in the mail for me to read over the summer.  Between the time she mailed the letter and when I received it on my desk -- she died unexpectedly of multiple embolisms.  I was stunned.  I held in my hands the final reflections on death of a person who didn’t realize that she herself would die within 24 hours of writing them.  

The Christian life is a battle which requires vigilance, perseverance and spiritual stamina.  When discussing the last petition of the Our Father (Deliver us from evil), the Church reminds us of the source of these final graces, “Such a battle and such a victory become possible only through prayer. It is by his prayer that Jesus vanquishes the tempter, both at the outset of his public mission and in the ultimate struggle of his agony (Mt. 4:1-11). In this petition to our heavenly Father, Christ unites us to his battle and his agony. He urges us to vigilance of the heart in communion with his own. Vigilance is "custody of the heart," and Jesus prayed for us to the Father: "Keep them in your name" (John 17:11). The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch (1 Cor. 16:13; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:6).  Finally, this petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance. "Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake” (Rev. 16:15). 

Let us commit to memory and pray daily the prayer uttered by our priests at the close of the communal recitation of the Our Father:

“Deliver us, Lord, we beseech you, from every evil and grant us peace in our day, so that aided by your mercy we might be ever free from sin and protected from all anxiety, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

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