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Death is really all about living

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Death is not really death: we don’t stop being ourselves and death is not extinction. Instead, new and eternal life awaits us.

By Tamara El-Rahi

In October 2016, Fr John Flader was told that Ellie – a 15-year old girl who attended the school where he is chaplain – had been diagnosed with a very aggressive tumour in the brain stem, both inoperable and incurable. She was given nine months to live at best.

Amazingly, Ellie lived for over five more years. During this time Fr Flader accompanied her and saw her go through stages such as fear and anger. “But through the help of her mother … she accepted that this was the will of God,” he says.

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In her last weeks, Ellie’s only form of communication was her eyes, moving them up and down to say “yes”. Some hours before she passed, her mother told her that Our Lady was coming to take her to heaven, and she added: “I bet you can’t wait”.

“Ellie’s eyes went up and down in the most emphatic way!” said Fr Flader. “It was a beautiful death of somebody who was really looking forward to it. Let us all pray that we can look forward to it too when the time comes and not be afraid.”

Ellie passed away in early 2022, on the very day that Fr Flader finished writing his book Dying to Live: Reflections on Life after Death. Hence the book is dedicated to her.

Death might seem an interesting, even somewhat frightening, subject matter for a book, but for Fr Flader, death is less about dying and more about living. “When all is said and done, we’re all going to die,” says Fr Flader.

“That applies to everybody. But what happens after that is the big question. Many don’t believe in life after death, or they wonder if there just might be something on the other side. This book is for them. It leads the reader gently and logically along a path of inquiry into this vital question, arguing from reason and experience.”

Fr John Flader

“We can all have our opinions, but what awaits us after death does not depend on what we think is going to happen. There is reality, and this book shows that the reality is eminently positive, and it fills us with hope.”

Fr Flader spoke about how the notion of an afterlife is intrinsically linked to belief in God. “You put the two together always,” says Fr Flader. “And if there’s no God, then we have to ask the question, ‘How did the universe begin?’”

“The chapter on the existence of God argues from scientific evidence, beginning with the origin of the universe. How did it begin? Scientists are now convinced that before this universe, before the big bang 13.8 billion years ago, there was nothing. And now there’s something – lots of it; hundreds of billions of galaxies of it. How did that happen? It seems clear that there has to be a God.”

But there is more than logic and science to convince the reader. Perhaps one of the most fascinating chapters is the one on near-death experiences. Fr Flader recounts multiple real-life stories of people who, generally in some sort of medical emergency that saw them clinically dead, experienced their soul separate from their body. They were able to observe what was happening to their physical body; or they proceeded to have an experience of heaven or hell.

“The near-death experiences point to the reality of what happens in life after death. And it happens to coincide perfectly with the Christian, and better, Catholic doctrine on those realities. There is the separation of the soul. There is a judgment…heaven, with all its beauty… purgatory… hell… compelling evidence for life after death.”

“I think God allows these near-death experiences… so that these people, some of whom might not have been saved, will be saved,” says Fr Flader. “And all of them change their life for the better and they can talk about it to other people… I think God allows it so that they, first of all, will change their lives… and in turn they will be able to help many other people change their lives.”

“this book hopefully can put people’s fears at rest and fill them more with hope” – Fr John Flader

Although many believe in the existence of heaven, death is still feared. Fr Flader says that this is quite a natural sentiment. “I think many believers…have a certain apprehension because they think: when I die, I’m going to close my eyes, and my soul is going to leave my body. Am I going to be conscious as I go through the stages of the judgment and the tunnel – if there’s a tunnel – and experience heaven, or maybe will I go to purgatory…?”

“I suspect that as the average person nears death, they might become somewhat apprehensive and say, ‘Is this all for real?’ But we should not be scared of death. We can’t be scared of heaven. We can’t be scared even of purgatory, because the souls there are so happy, even though they also suffer. But I think that the uncertainty of what happens might lead to a certain degree – not necessarily of fear – but of apprehension and uncertainty.

“So this book hopefully can put people’s fears at rest and fill them more with hope. But I dare say, as so many have said, that when all is said and done, we die alone. We can be surrounded by loved ones, but in the end, that soul is yours and you’re going to face God.”
Fr Flader’s main goal in writing this book was to help more souls get to heaven. He also wants people to realise that life after death is eminently positive.

“We don’t present God as the god of wrath, the god of judgment, the god of punishment, but the God of mercy, the God of love, which is what He is, and He wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Hopefully this book will help many people come to the knowledge of the truth, be forgiven by God no matter how many sins they’ve committed, and be saved.”

Dying to Live is available from The Mustard Seed Bookshop:
www.mustardseed.org.au

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