I recently asked a healthy old man, "What would you like God to give you more in the world?"

I recently asked a healthy old man, "What would you like God to give you more in the world?" He put his hand on his heart and answered: "Death and only death"! "Do you believe in life after death?" "It is precisely because of this belief that I desire death as soon as possible," said the old man. Unbelievers fear death, as they consider death to be a complete destruction of life. Many people who believe again are afraid of death because they think that they have not completed their duty in this world: They have not put the children on the right path yet, or they have not completed what they started. Even some holy people were afraid at the time of death. When the angels came down to take the soul of Saint Sisoyeus, this angelic man prayed that they would leave him a little longer in life for repentance and preparation for the next life. The saints, therefore, did not fear death but the judgment of God after death. And this is the only justified fear of the Christian, who firmly believes in the other life and in the judgment of God.

While without faith in the other, heavenly life, fear is the rope around the neck, with which death pulls the condemned to its bowels. Life for the unbeliever is nothing but the wind of death, the wind that raises and throws his dead ashes mixes this ashes and calms it. If the unbeliever to the end thought logically, he should say that life does not really exist. For him his only faith is death, the only eternal power is death, the only God, death. For us Christians, however, death is the completion of a school, the signal for the end of military service, and the bridge to return home. In fact, death does not exist in itself for those who believe in Christ. He said to Martha - and he says this to us today - “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”(John 11: 25-26). You can not believe people even when they say their name, much less when they say "I will pay you tomorrow", and little when they talk about deep and high things. Except for the Son of God, no one knows anything about death or what awaits us after death. But He knew and appeared and showed. "Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:54), in the words of the apostle. So what do we have to fear from what was swallowed up by the resurrection of Christ? The fear of death does not go hand in hand with those who cling to Christ,

But a fear remains, completely immovable and justified. It is that fear that the holy souls felt in the face of death. This is fear not of death but of unpreparedness for that immortal life. The fear of the impurity of our soul. Since the unclean will not see God, nor the real life in the holy heavens.

May the Lord be your courage and consolation ...

(St. Nicholas Velimirovich)