A friend got thrown out of Freerepublic religion section, by the Catholics there, for being insensitive, when he posted the excellent article below from 1950, by Carol Robinson. I highly recommend the book.

I have noticed that non-trad Catholics in general (whether Novus Ordo or fallen away), are scared to death about death. Anyone see anything wrong with what Carol Robinson is writing here?





pg 234  MY LIFE WITH THOMAS AQUINAS

The All Important Moment

The most important thing about death is that it is the final decisive moment of a man's life. Our life paths are marked by temptations to mortal sin (the only real crises), at each of which a man turns decisively toward God or away from God. At death he has the final choice and so, no matter how the world may choose to gloss over the end of a man, that moment is not ignored by those who know its true significance. God and the devil contend then for a man's soul. The devil puts up quite a fight, unless he has long had the case sewed up. But God provided the "fear of death" which comes over a man in his last illness, presaging the end. It brings even the most superficial and worldly people (indeed especially these people) sharply to the consideration of eternal things and moral judgment. It is a last ditch opportunity to turn to God's mercy through fear, if one has failed heretofore to seek Him through love. For many it is the last opportunity to save their souls.

Quite different and far greater is the supernatural help Christ has provided in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which along with Confession and Viaticuм prepares a person for a holy departure from this life, and gives graces to resist the devil's temptations. The last anointing also restores health if it is for the good of the soul.

There is one other Christian aid to dying and that is, as traditionally taught by the Church, that Our Lady intercedes especially at that time  "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

The Devil and Modern Death

In view of all the assistance God gives the dying man, the devil is relatively powerless because all he can do is present temptations to the imagination. Yet working subtly (when will we learn that the devil is much cleverer than we are?) and indirectly, Satan has arranged to win the deathbed battle without even bothering to be present. This is how it is done. First of all he has arranged for a conspiracy of silence about the impending death, under the guise of virtue. Products as we all are today of a sentimental, residual humanitarianism, it is almost universally considered dastardly to allow a person
to prepare to meet God . You must not tell him he's dying because it might kill him, is the curious line of reasoning that is taken. Yet for millions of materialists sodden with self indulgence, what could be more salutary in the light of eternity than to spend several weeks contemplating the certainty of dying (provided, of course, that the love of God and the prospect of heaven are also made known). It would be enough to sanctify very mediocre material. As long, however, as hospitals and doctors and families continue dogmatically to hold their secular views, the devil can take a vacation.

There is also the little matter of sudden death. The chances of a man's dying in an automobile accident or an airplane crash or by bombing, atomic or otherwise, are very good today   vastly greater than ever before. If we were all holy people it wouldn't matter if we were caught unawares, but the likelihood is that some of us could use a few minutes for an act of contrition and so, at present, sudden death plays into the devil's hands. Indeed, he may have helped invent some of the instruments thereof

Finally, we find modern man lavishly provided with opiates to ease the pain of dying. This is no simple situation. There appears to be a great increase in suffering (notably cancer) combined with a loss of the ability, physical and spiritual, to accept it. It would indeed be cruel to take away a cancer patient's morphine. Yet morphine, besides killing pain, gives people a false sense of well being. A man who is, in fact, about to die feels that his demise is remote. That "fear of death" which God provided in our very nature, as a last salutary warning, just doesn't operate. Does it make very much difference? I have heard of a nurse whose cancer patient was in great physical anguish and even greater moral peril, highly unrepentant and openly contemptuous of God. There was no way of reaching the woman through the pleasant haze of morphine, so the nurse stopped giving morphine, merely going through the motions as larger and larger doses were ordered by the doctor in response to the woman's complaints. As soon as the morphine wore off, the fear of death penetrated even the pain. The patient repented, made her peace with God, and then was given morphine again to ease the last few hours. What this nurse did (her moral duty) would be considered a shockingly cruel and professionally unethical thing. To allow pain for the salvation of a soul is considered immoral by people who are beginning to commit murder as the latest in pain killers.