“Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”

from hprweb.com by Father Kenneth Baker, SJ

Ash Wednesday usually occurs in February, but this 
year it comes later, on March 9. “Dust thou art and to 
dust thou shalt return.” The Church offers this prayer 
for each one of us as the priest traces a black cross on 
our foreheads with the ashes from burnt palm branches. 
I wonder how often we reflect, especially when we are in
 good health and are busy with many good works, that a
 day will come, perhaps very soon, when we will die and
 our bodies will be placed in a cold casket six feet under 
the lush green grass in the local Catholic cemetery. I should ask myself now, “Where 
will I be then?”

As Catholics we should think about death each day, since it is included in many of 
our prayers. The Mass itself is a memorial and a re-presentation of the death of Jesus. 
A crucifix reminds us of the death of Christ. In the Liturgy of the Hours we are 
constantly reminded of the death of the Lord, of the death of the wicked, and of our 
own certain death. The Church, making use of the Psalms, reminds us over and over 
again that our life is fragile and fleeting, and that it will disappear like the morning mist.

Man naturally fears death. He knows it is certain, but he does not like to think about it. 
Contemporary American culture trivializes death in the media because it does not want
to confront the awesome reality of death. It is strange, is it not? Scores of murders and 
deaths are shown on TV each day, but rarely, if ever, is the reality of death given 
serious treatment.

Our modern culture tries to create illusions of immortality. We see this in film and TV 
stars, in sports heroes, in popular politicians. But where are they now? Picking just a 
few well-known names at random, we can ask: where are Abraham Lincoln, John 
Wayne, FDR, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, and all the rest 
who have gone before us? During their lifetimes they were thought to be important 
persons. Now they are gone, and most people pay little or no attention to them.

What a cruel fate awaits rich, powerful and famous men and women who appear to be 
something but who, whether sooner or later, are swallowed up by the jaws of death. 
Many of them do not seem to know that death is the fruit of sin, that “the wages of sin 
is death” (Rom 6:23). And we Catholics—priests, religious and laity—are we any 
different? Do we heed the warnings of the Bible and the teaching of the Church that 
death is the punishment for sin—the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and our 
own personal sins? Daily the Church urges us to repentance and conversion of heart, 
especially during Lent. Do we listen and heed her motherly warnings?

Just think about your relatives and friends who have died during the past few years. 
Where are they now? The Church teaches infallibly that there are only three 
possibilities  right now before the Second Coming of Christ: purgatory, heaven and 
hell. Do you ever think seriously about the certain fact that you will be with those 
deceased friends and relatives one future day—perhaps sooner than you think? 
Do you pray for them and gain indulgences for them in case they are in purgatory?

The closer one comes to God in love and the more one submits himself to the will of 
God, the more one becomes like God in holiness, and the less fear one feels in the 
face of death. Actually, many of the saints have longed to die, to be dissolved that 
they might  be united eternally with Christ. St. Paul said, “For me to live is Christ, to 
die is gain…. My  desire is to depart and to be with Christ” (Phil 1:21-23). A daily 
awareness that we shall soon be judged by the glorified Christ for our words and 
deeds injects humility into our lives, and spurs us on to a more intense practice of 
the love of God and neighbor.