How often do you think about your own death?

It is spiritually healthy to think about the day of your death, as it forces us to examine our lives and to think about what we may need to change before we die.

If we are honest with ourselves, most of us don’t like to think about our own death. We might be afraid to leave this world, as we are attached to many different things or people on this earth.

However, if we are to fully embrace the Christian life, we need to think about death.

It is a reality we cannot escape and when we die, we will transition to our eternal destination.

Day of your death

St. Francis de Sales encourages Christians to imagine the day of your death in his Introduction to the Devout Life:

Suppose yourself to be on your deathbed, in the last extremity, without the smallest hope of recovery.

He then invites us to consider the various circumstances of our death, especially the reality that we do not know when that day will come:

Consider the uncertainty as to the day of your death. One day your soul will quit this body—will it be in summer or winter? In town or country? By day or by night? Will it be suddenly or with warning? Will it be owing to sickness or an accident? Will you have time to make your last confession or not? Will your confessor or spiritual father be at hand or will he not? Alas, of all these things we know absolutely nothing: all that we do know is that die we shall, and for the most part sooner than we expect.

Furthermore, St. Francis de Sales points out to us that when we die, we will have to say goodbye to all of our earthly attachments:

Consider the universal farewell which your soul will take of this world. It will say farewell to riches, pleasures, and idle companions; to amusements and pastimes, to friends and neighbors, to husband, wife and child, in short to all creation. And lastly it will say farewell to its own body, which it will leave pale and cold, to become repulsive in decay.

After considering all of these things, we should be inspired to resolve to work more diligently for our final destination:

I will prepare for the hour of death and take every precaution for its peaceful arrival; I will thoroughly examine into the state of my conscience, and put in order whatever is wanting.

While we may not want to think about it, we will all die and need to start preparing for that day, whenever it will happen.