hello my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die hi my
name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. There was this nurse
who used to work with a number of people as they were dying.
She worked in hospice and she, in her interviewing of these people as
they were passing from this life into the next she saw a repeated pattern that
what she called the top five regrets of the dying. Among those five were things
like I wish I'd let myself be happier, things like I wish I hadn't worked so
hard, things like I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends now that here I am
with with very little things and I have found myself with very little friends;
things like I wish that I had been able to express my feelings more. If I loved
someone I wish I had told them I love them if I was sad I wish I'd let people
know that I was sad. Another one was I wish I'd been true to what I wanted to
do, what I wanted to be rather than conform my life to what someone else
expected of me. It's interesting these these top five regrets of people who
were dying one of the things that it reveals is this it reveals that we're
not very good at dying. Like, we're not as like a people as a species as a whatever
we are we're not good at doing this thing that every single one of us has to
do at some point. That's why I love I love that Lent is practice. Lent is
practice for dying. I mean that's really really what it is in so many ways. Why?
Because it's preparation for a resurrection, right, preparation for
Easter, celebrating Easter; but in so many ways what is Easter? Easter is how do
we open our hearts, how do we prepare ourselves to receive the life
that God has in store for us. Isn't that exactly what life after death for the
Christian is meant to be? It's this to enter into the Father's house that
Christ has prepared a place for us and to enter into the joy, enter into the life
that he's that he's created for us, he's made possible for us, that he gives
to us, makes possible for us by his grace. But we're not ready for it. We're
not ready to die because so few of us live like we think that death is coming.
I mean think about it. All these top five regrets of the dying have
to do with relationships, have to do with 'I wish I'd lived my life on purpose.'
I mean think about this, I wish I'd lived my life on purpose rather than just
wasted my life. Nobody's going to get to death and say I wish that I had spent
more time watching Netflix. I wish. No, no one's going to get to their deathbed and
say, 'Man, I I know I totally could have watched that episode of the office 42
times rather than 41 times.' I mean think about how we live our lives. C.S. Lewis
points this out in The Screwtape Letters. He says most people get to the end of
their lives saying not only did I not do what God wanted me to do. I didn't even
do what I wanted to do. Why? Because I just kind of indulged
myself. I didn't live on purpose. I kind of live like life is an accident.
Since so few of us do that one of the things that Lent is meant to do, it's
meant to strip us from the extra things that we know that we don't need because
that's what death is, isn't it? It's a stripping of all of these
things in our life we have to give up different kinds of foods we have to give
up relationships. We have to let go of things that just don't belong in our
lives. We have to say yes and hold on to the things, maybe and particularly, the
one thing that we absolutely need. Lent is meant for us to be a time where we
turn away from those extra things, we turn our attention to other people to
invest in them, and most of all or we turn our hearts in our everything to God
to say at the end of my life I will have nothing I will have nothing so for you
God. So at the end of my life will I be prepared to have nothing but you God?
This Lent, your fasting, your penances, your prayer time, your almsgiving, it's
meant to do all those things. That's meant to be a preparation for death and
if you do this if you live life like you know that some day you're gonna die and
have to say, 'What did I do with this. I didn't want to live on accident, I want
to live on purpose,' then you'll be ready. That's why—this is an incredible thing—
Cardinal Dziwisz was the personal secretary to the Holy Father, Pope John
Paul II, St. John Paul II, and he said not ... it wasn't just John Paul's prayer life
that edified him, it wasn't just his charisma that edified him, it wasn't
even the way in which he was able to do incredible things with his life
that most impressed Cardinal Dziwisz said the most impressive
thing about John Paul II was how he died. He was ready to die, he was ready
to allow himself to be stripped of all of the things he didn't need so that he
could cling to the one thing that he absolutely needed. He allowed himself to
experience suffering, he allowed himself to embrace the the pain of his long slow
debilitating disease and he allowed himself to die when God called his name.
This is remarkable, the most impressive thing according to
the person maybe who knew John Paul II most, possibly the most impressive
thing that John Paul ever did. His life was a preparation for death so he said
he wasn't a passive observer of it, he was an active participant, that God is
calling his name and he's saying yes, that God was stripping him of his physical
strength and he was saying yes, that for John Paul II death was
another journey that God was calling him on. His response was simply to say yes.
This Lent, this is another death, another stripping that God's calling you on, our
practice for death is simply saying yes to that stripping no matter how it comes
and no matter when it happens. It's an intense thing but so is death, so get
ready for it. Prepare to die. My name is Father Mike
Schmitz, God bless.