The title is nicked from Life is a fatal disease: collected poems 1962-1995
by Paula Gunn Allen.
The idea is much older. Manilius wrote in his Astronomicon
IV.16
nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet
“We are born but to die (lit,
die in being born), and our end hangs on to our beginning.” An early English
gravestone paraphrased Manilius perfectly:
As soon, as wee to bee, begunne; we did beginne, to be undone.”[1]
To live is to die. For us to live is to enter the realm of
mortality. Like candles; when alive –giving light– they burn down. It is appropriate that Candlemas, the day on which traditionally all the Church's candles for the year were blessed, is celebrated on the Feast Day of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.
The Gospel reading on this Feast Day, Luke 2:22-40, hints at the truths we should acknowledge for a good life and a good death:
- we are mortal but are given access to the realm of immortality (the purification motif)
- the mortal must serve the immortal (5x “according to the law” or similar; first-born; cf. Psalm 24:1)
- the mortal is in the hands of the immortal (Simeon: no fear of death; peace)
- the mortal is redeemed in Jesus who brought immortality to light (2 Timothy 1:10)
Simeon, the one who trusts God for his commandments
(“righteous and devout”) is the one who trusts God also for his promises (“looking
forward”), the one rooted in the revelation is oriented towards God’s work of
the future). Simeon can face death in peace because he has seen the conqueror of death.
Life is a fatal disease but in Christ death has been swallowed up in victory because the Immortal took on mortality: "Since the children share flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15). Cf. Living Corpses.
Life is a fatal disease but in Christ death has been swallowed up in victory because the Immortal took on mortality: "Since the children share flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15). Cf. Living Corpses.
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