The Octave of the dead, celebrated in many parish churches after November 2nd, is a "propitious opportunity" to "meditate on the reality of death that the so-called ‘affluent society’ often tries to remove from people’s consciences". This was said yesterday morning by the Pope, before introducing the Angelus prayer. "Despite all distractions, though, the loss of a beloved one explained Benedict XVI makes us rediscover the ‘issue’, making us feel death as a presence that is deeply hostile and contrary to our natural bent for life and happiness". Jesus, though, "revolutionised the meaning of death. He did it through His lesson, but above all by facing death Himself". In the final analysis, "He was born to be able to die, and thus release us from the slavery of death". God’s love, working through Jesus, gave therefore "a new meaning to man’s whole existence and thus also transformed man’s death". So, "one must not fear" physical death, "because it is a sleep from which one day we will be reawakened". The "real death" to be feared is "the death of the soul". Actually, concluded the Pope, "those who die in mortal sin, without repenting, withdrawn into the proud refusal of God’s love, cut themselves out of the kingdom of life".
