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141 C H A P T E R 6 l DyingGracefully In November 1996, just two weeks before he died, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin finished his book The Gift of Peace, in which he offers his meditations on three widely publicized events that punctuated the last years of his life: the false accusation of sexual abuse and his eventual reconciliation with his accuser; the diagnosis of an extremely aggressive form of cancer and his initially successful medical battle, which won him fifteen months of remission; and finally, the return of the disease and his decision to live fully for the remaining span of time allotted to him.1 Bernardin recounts how all three events brought him to death and resurrection. In each event, he was called to let go of his own views of the proper course of his life and to grow ever more radical in his trust in Jesus Christ. While he could have made “letting go” seem peaceful, Bernardin does not flinch from describing the pain and uncertainty embedded in the arduous process of dying. In the end, we see how in the midst of his trials he embraced God’s “gift of peace.” His story inspires readers bearing the burdens of their own crosses to hope and pray for the same gift. The challenge of grappling with the pain and uncertainty of dying is, of course, nothing new to humanity in general, nor to Christians in particular. In fact, religious writing about dying was extremely popular from the late Middle Ages through the Catholic Reformation, when premature death loomed as an omnipresent threat.The focus of most works in this tradition, known as the ars moriendi, or the “art of dying [well],” is pastoral and practical. The overarching purpose of this literature is to advise and assist persons as they prepare to relinquish their hold on this life and embark upon the next.2 Of course, the 142 Life Issues and the Law specific focus of such assistance varies from era to era as different aspects of dying become more acute problems in different cultural contexts.The primary existential difficulty for those living during the time when the ars moriendi achieved its greatest prominence was the constant tension people experienced between hope of salvation and fear of eternal damnation.3 As we enter the third millennium, however, it is clear that we face a very different problem. The distinctive questions regarding death and dying that confront today’s Western cultures involve a crisis of meaning, not a crisis of salvation. In many ways, the contemporary crisis is far more radical than the medieval one; rather than probing whether we have successfully conformed our hearts and minds to the deep metaphysical order of the universe, the foremost question is whether there is any discernible order calling for such conformity in the first place. Not surprisingly, questions of meaning become most acute when one is faced with the reality of death and dying. For persons who find themselves in the midst of it, is there any possible value in the dying process? What about for their loved ones, or for society? Is it possible for persons to continue living while at the same time dying—by growing in some way personally , spiritually, or socially in the midst of their physical diminishment? Or is dying an inexorable, impersonal, biological event best completed as quickly and easily as possible? Woody Allen famously remarked, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”4 This line captures a prominent, perhaps even dominant, American sensibility toward death and dying.5 Many people living in the United States today, including many Catholics, would say that the ideal death is a swift and sharp transition from vigorous existence to nonexistence—a death that circumvents the process of dying altogether. For example, a qualitative study of geriatric outpatients revealed that “the most frequently mentioned themes associated with good deaths were to die without pain, in one’s sleep, quickly, without suffering, and without knowledge of impending death.”6 In a different survey of terminally ill men, a respondent described a good death in the following manner: “Oh, just going to sleep one night and not waking up. It would be a very easy, fast way to go, no drugs, no side effects, so to me that would be real easy.”7 Not everyone who expressed these preferences did so for the same reasons. For example...

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