Author name: Molly Hostetler

What can we do differently or better now that we know the Fathers? What can we learn from them? Here are a few things that I’ve learned and that I try to keep in mind in my own work and witness, with my family, in the neighborhood, and in the Church. Here are some very practical steps.  

We have come through what may be the strangest Easter in the history of the Church.
In the topsy-turviness of that time, ordinary things suddenly stood out for me in striking ways.

St. Paul makes it clear that Resurrection is an essential aspect of Christian faith. He states, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:16–19).

Christ truly died on the Cross. It was not faked, and it was not a trick or sleight of hand. His death was the real thing, involving pain, aloneness, and removal from the living. Yet when He bowed His thorn-crowned head and uttered the earth-shaking words, “It is finished” (John 19:30), it was not His life that was finished but rather the reign of death.

We’ve just celebrated what is no doubt one of the strangest Palm Sundays in Church history—and we’re entering a Holy Week that is no less strange. But for many of us, this Holy Week feels more real than ever before.

Certainly we were all born to die. That’s a true statement, but it only points to a partial reality. For fuller understanding we need to peer into what lies beyond our physical death. Yes, death is the end of physical life as we know it now, but death is also a birth into a greater life. Our physical death is actually a second birth. Let me explain.  

When a family member is gripped by a terminal illness, those who love that person struggle with what to tell him or her. Sometimes, because of a misguided desire not to upset the sick person, a code of silence surrounds the individual. However, we all need to be prepared for death both physically and, more importantly, spiritually. It does no service to the dying to deny them the opportunity to prepare.  

The Church venerates Mary under the title Theotokos, the Mother of God. This devotion to Mary has always been rooted in devotion to Jesus himself. If Jesus was truly man and truly God in one person, and Mary was the mother of that person, then it is absolutely right to say that Mary is the Mother of God.  

Death is a birth into eternal life, but not everyone will have the same destination. There will be a day of reckoning, the particular judgment, for each and every person at the time of death. Those who are “found in Christ” will enjoy a heavenly existence. Yet there is another possibility, to which Saint Francis alludes in his poem-prayer: “Woe to those who die in mortal sin!”