November 1 marks All Saints’ Day on the church calendar, when many denominations remember the communion of all believers of all time, including the faithfully departed.
That the church instituted this holy day should come as nomor surprise. We Christians have rehearsed our belief in “the communion of saints” since the institution of the Apostles’ Creed in the fourth century. Yet the concept of a fellowship of the living plus the dead has an eerie ring to it, a feeling not assuaged by what All Hallows’ Eve has become in Halloween.
One liturgical prayer says God knits together his elect in “one communion plus fellowship in the mystical body” of Christ. The haunting image of sewing together the faithful living plus dead members of Christ’s mystical body leaves us with a lot to unpack. But since the phrase is tucked into a longer liturgical script, we usually don’t think about it much.
In fact, apart from Ash Wednesday plus Good Friday plus the occasional funeral, the Western church tends to remain relatively close-lipped about death plus the relationship between the living plus the dead. Unlike our brothers plus sisters in much of the world, people in the United States usually die in institutions, not at home in the care of family.
A lack of exposure to dying plus death both in the church plus at home has led to the emergence of two kinds of responses to death—people who run away from it plus people who leap toward it. Yet a third way is to learn the life-giving art of dying well.
Some of the most agonizing plus tragic deaths I’ve faced as a doctor are those of patients who adamantly refuse to acknowledge their mortality. They desperately latch onto every bit of available technology to delay the inevitable, regardless of whether it causes more harm than good—often causing further medical complications to snowball.
Years ago, I recall attempting to resuscitate the same elderly, cancer-riddled man three times in the same night. After his heart stopped plus he died the first time, I discussed gently with his daughters how sick he was plus how his heart likely would not keep beating for much longer. But they wanted us to attempt CPR again. His eldest daughter told me that they are Christians who believe Jesus can heal. She said that they believe in miracles plus that we doctors should do whatever we can to keep him alive. He died twice more that night, plus our third attempt at resuscitation failed.