Why is the following so sickening, at least to me? You can, or could, buy it printed on a laminated card in the bookshop at Westminster Cathedral. It is about being dead.
I think it may be heretical.
"I have only slipped away into the next room"
The popular passage comes from a sermon on death written by Scott Holland and entitled `The King of Terrors.' He delivered it in St. Paul's on 15 May 1910), at which time the body of King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster. The context is important:
'Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!'
So the face speaks. Surely while we speak there is a smile flitting over it; a smile as of gentle fun at the trick played us by seeming death...'
The sermon was published posthumously in a collection entitled Facts of the Faith (Longmans, 1919
Hatred Explained
-
So, what is emerging one week after Charlie Kirk’s brutal assassination?
The assassin was the “boyfriend” of a male who fancies himself a woman.
That is, h...
7 hours ago
3 comments:
In the situation that a devout Catholic has died, then all his or her devout Catholic brethren may have profound moral certainty (as opposed to absolute certainty - only God knows who is written in the Book of Life) that they are with God. They can very much experience the feeling of joy and peace that comes with the parting of death. The above statement is thus not at all heretical.
We should, however, join the attitude described by Holland with Prayer & Sacrifices (i.e. Mass) for the Dead, and also an offered-up Plenary Indulgence (which, if we read the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, is not difficult to attain). Then our joy and peace can be fulfilled with the knowledge that our charity towards our loved one is complete in helping them complete their journey, through that final Theosis of Purgatory, to full communion with God and the perfect peace and happiness of Heaven.
I dislike it because it ignores Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. All this slipping away nonsense - slipping to where I ask?
All is not the same; it is profoundly altered. Hopefully, for the better.
Post a Comment