Welcome Sister Death

Sister Death in the Canticle of the Creatures.

Throughout life, God gives us invitation after invitation to grow in his love.  His will is that we grow in love, that we be holy because the Lord is holy.  Our indefatigable effort to embrace the will of God is the very best that we can do to “get there”.   Our efforts alone will not achieve this end; God, in his mercy, supplies for what we lack.  

Death is ultimately an invitation to embrace the Will of God.  The Will of God is gracious and desires only our good.  St. Francis once wrote in a letter to St. Clare and her sisters, “Live always in truth that you may die in obedience”.  Living in the truth of who we are as created by God, acknowledging our poverty in having nothing that has not been given to us, strengthens our will to embrace the gracious Will of God: to die in obedience.  Francis knew that death is the last opportunity in this world to say “Yes” to God and it is the doorway beyond which the beatific vision awaits us.  Death had become for Francis a welcomed friend, a Sister, a representative of God, who opens the door and ushers us into the afterlife.