Fr. Nnamdi Moneme: How Reconciliation Prepares Us for Death

Ben Sira has this to say about how our thoughts of death should impact us: “Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the most High’s covenant, and overlook faults”

This ancient biblical writer is recommending that the best way to prepare for death — our death and the death of our loved ones — is to accept the reconciliation that God offers us and offer this same reconciliation to others. We are to be first reconciled with God, breaking from sin, obeying His commandments, and being faithful to His covenant. Secondly and simultaneously, we are to reconcile with others, refusing to nurture conflicts with them and overlooking their faults and offenses against us. …