I was really disturbed by some of the reactions to the recent report into the 2009 Air France crash, which suggested that it would be far better for someone if they had no warning at all about their impending death.
You probably remember hearing about the tragedy: all 228 people aboard were killed when an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009. A preliminary report has been written two years after on the basis of information from the aircraft’s black boxes, which were only recovered last month. There is no clear conclusion about what caused the crash – it was partly to do with faulty instrumental readings. The fall took three and a half minutes.
This is the bit that disturbed me, as reported by Elaine Ganley and Jill Lawless:
Some families of victims who said they were given information in a meeting with the agency said it was possible their loved ones went to their deaths unaware of what was happening because there was apparently no contact between the cockpit and cabin crew in the 3 1 / 2 minutes.
“It seems they did not feel more movements and turbulence than you generally feel in storms,” said Jean-Baptiste Audousset, president of a victims’ solidarity association. “So, we think that until impact they did not realize the situation, which for the family is what they want to hear — they did not suffer.”
It’s true that they may not have had to live through the horror of knowing they were falling to their deaths; and I do understand how a relative can find some consolation in knowing this. But surely there are other considerations involved here as well? It must be frightening to know that you are about to die, and I have sat with many people as they face this knowledge and try to come to terms with it – but would you really prefer not to know?
I’m not just writing as a Christian believer now. Yes, as a person of faith, I would rather have a few minutes to pray, to thank God for my life, to say sorry for anything I have done wrong, to offer my life to the Lord, and generally to prepare for my death. But even if I had no faith in God or in a life after death, my impending death would still be a hugely significant horizon, and those last few minutes of life would surely take on an unimaginable significance. I wouldn’t wish for myself that I were left in ignorance. I’d want to know, in order to try to make sense of it, or simply to make the most of it, or at least not to waste it. And I wouldn’t wish for my loved ones to be denied the possibility of knowing that their end was near.
I’m not romanticising death. I’m certainly not pretending that the fear isn’t very real, especially if the knowledge comes quickly and unexpectedly. I’d just rather know. Fear, sometimes, is what helps us to appreciate the significance of some great truth that lies before us; and there aren’t many truths as significant as death.
A film that played with these themes very creatively was Last Night from 1998 (not the new film with Keira Knightley).
Everyone knows that the world is going to end this evening at midnight, and we see how various characters in Toronto react. Their decisions about how to spend the last few hours of their life generally reflect the concerns and priorities of the life they have already lived, the life they have made. Their fundamental intentions are clarified and crystalised in these last moments.
On the other hand, knowing that time is so short, it gives them a chance to make something different of their life. Not so much a moral conversion (although that is also possible), but a reorientation, a new level of authenticity, a sort of redemption – even if the choices some of them made were thoroughly depressing. It’s well worth seeing.
It matters not. I thank God every day for my life. I Love and am True. If I knew I was going to die at Midnight I would meet Him at the door by the garden.
Many many years ago our priest was pastor at Manchester airport and there was a crash on landing. I think it was a Vickers Viscount. There were no survivors.
The pilot’s last four words were clearly heard by those in the control tower:
“O My God Because”
Father John explained that the pilot was a catholic.
What a beautiful story. Just in case anyone hasn’t made the connection, these are the first 4 words of one of the traditional ‘acts of contrition’ which is said by Catholics at the end of the day and in emergencies like this: ‘O my God, because you are so good, I am very sorry that I have sinned against you, and with the help of your grace, I will not sin again’.
Part of our prayer, everyday, should be to ask God that we will always have time to say a final, proper good prayer before death. And everyday remember that death can come like a thief in the night.
Or that if our death is unexpected it is because God can’t resist being without us, fully, any longer.
It’s a good thing to fear God (which really amounts to we fearing our own capacity of evil in which sin separates man from God, not God who separates Himself from man – and that we need God, always, to protect and help and guide us etc ..) But, at same time, never forgetting that the God who created all the wonder of existence (including us) is also The Expert in leading us – please God – to salvation. He’s on our side. He’s not playing tricks. I guess we have to trust in Him more – to really get to know Him spiritually – and not just fear Him (important as that is).
Don’t mean to preach. But say this as way of encouragement.
I agree with you that it is far better for a person to know that they are about to die, but I do so mainly from a spritiual perspective. If there were no God, nothing other than the obliteration of life and what made a person more than the physical matter they are composed of, then I would say knowing that you were about to die in the few minutes before it happened would be of no value. Perhaps it were different even in such a horrible and completely fictional scenario if you knew for a few days or a few weeks or months.
However, that scenario is completely fictional. There is a God. There is eternal life. There are decisions to be made. And the four last things are of paramount importance. It is in this context that it is much better to know that you are dying even if it is only a matter of minutes until it happens. Because miracles can be worked in minutes. We know that we will face a final struggle in the last minutes of life. And we also know that miracles of grace can occur to those who have not given God much thought, or have even purposely rejected Him throughout their lives, which is why it is of paramount importance to pray frequently, indeed as constantly as possible, for the dying. The outcome is not, as opposed to what many sentimentally try to persuade themselves, a given.
Is God dependent on the person being made aware by some circumstance that they are dying a few minutes before ‘impact’ in order to reach them with His graces? I should think not, as even the last second of life can present ample opportunity for a last encounter in this life with the God which leaves it up to us to choose the life He offers us, even if it is also true that we cannot do so without the graces required. However, it would surely be of great benefit spiritually for most to know what is happening, to get a bit of a heads up, before that last second of mortal life.
They knew nothing and felt nothing is a merely temporal comfort for a temporally minded world. It is understandable temporal comfort for those who are either not of deep and true Faith or who are too grief stricken to think clearly. But it is a false comfort which, to my mind, goes against the true interests of their loved ones, whether of Faith or not of Faith (and with Faith I mean Faith in accordance with Truth and Charity and not any kind of even Christian belief system or vague spiritual sentiment!).
A great book on the importance of praying for the dying is Mother Mary Potter’s ‘Devotion for the dying’.
I was holding my daddies hand when he died and it was very beautiful, He knew he was dying and had been poorly for a few weeks. There was no struggle, and he had time to share with us everything that he wanted to share. It was one of the defining moments in my life that I tangibly felt Gods physical presence touch me. So that I will never doubt ever again.
But I am blessed. It is not fair for others to suggest that to be taken from this world without knowledge is any less Grace filled than knowing. The thing is to learn to be filled with Grace whilst we are alive. For It is everyday that we should say thank you for our lives. It is everyday we should be honest with ourselves, with God and others. It is every day that we should try to be the best possible person that we can be, It is everyday that we should be humbled and apologise when we fall short, and it is everyday that we should be over pouring with Loving kindness.
And when we are in this place of Grace and this deepest place of eternal Love with God, it matters not if we go to Him slowly or quickly, an A star for effort is what we should all aim for whilst waiting x.
Great blog thank you Fr Stephen
“It is not fair for others to suggest that to be taken from this world without knowledge is any less Grace filled than knowing.”
It is absolutely true that is is impossible for us to tell the graces available even at the last second suspended so to speak. But that is not to say that it is not a great advantage to have the graces of natural circumstances playing into the supernatural (and perhaps provided as part of God’s grace). And thus to be grateful for that circumstance and not to wish for the opposite. Whereas God can certainly work in the lack of time perceived where the person is conscious of impending death, it is also true that we should be grateful for the gift of time in which we are conscious of death and have, fully and to our knowledge, the gift of being able to reach out for God.
Let me put it in an analogous fashion. Take two atheists or confirmed sinners on their death beads. One has an obvious last minute conversion heard and witnessed by people around him. The other does not. Is it possible that God miraculously reached the second person any way in that very last second of life when the people around could not perceive any such conversion? Yes, it is. But should we not wish for and be grateful for the first example? I think we should.
In the same way we are all happy if we can receive the last rites, but that is not to say that God cannot supply the same graces in an extraordinary fashion. Both are true and one does not refute the other. It is always an advantage to be able to go through the ordinary means, as the extraordinary are just that, extraordinary and beyond our knowledge and certainty. God may supply the grace of perfect contrition and we may respond to that in the last minute, but one would wish for the possibility to receive absolution from a priest. God may supply the strengths of the last rites in an extraordinary manner, but we hope for the sacraments.
The same holds true, I believe, with the amount of time left to a person to know that they are dying and to look at their lives in that light. It is a gift. Can there be other gifts for those who seemingly do not get this one? Yes, but it seems that in the normal course of things this would be a gift worth praying for. If it is present, we pray it was well used, if was not present, we pray that God reached the people in a second or moment beyond our ken.
There is no way that I can see that it is in the normal course of things an outright advantage for someone to die without ever being aware that they were dying as compared to being aware at one point or other. In fact, for those in a stateof mortal sin, one would positively have to rely on there being a second or fraction of a section before the person was dead when they were able to reach out for God in response to His reaching out for them. Even for those who would not be in a state of mortal sin, I don’t believe that most would be prepared enough that it would not make any sort of difference or would not be an advantage to know when one was dying. And even for the saints, it seems likely to me that they would wish to have that time if they could choose.
Btw, I don’t think the reports that the victims did not know they were dying signifies that there was no such second in which they were aware of what was happening.
None of the above signifies that we should not try to strive for perfect love, for holiness, every single day of our lives.
It is not fair for others (who have lost Loved ones instantly) to suggest (to them) that to be taken from this world without knowledge is any less Grace filled than knowing.
These people’s Loved ones had Grace bestowed upon them by God. And now they live in His eternal Grace with Him.
Thank you for all your thoughts Catholic or Thule.
“The thing is to learn to be filled with Grace whilst we are alive. For It is everyday that we should say thank you for our lives. It is everyday we should be honest with ourselves, with God and others. It is every day that we should try to be the best possible person that we can be, It is everyday that we should be humbled and apologise when we fall short, and it is everyday that we should be over pouring with Loving kindness.
And when we are in this place of Grace and this deepest place of eternal Love with God, it matters not if we go to Him slowly or quickly, an A star for effort is what we should all aim for whilst waiting x.”
I remember many years ago having a conversation with my husband discussing whether we would want to know if we were dying. We both agreed that we would not want the information witheld and that we would both wish to know in order to put our spiritual affairs in order.
My husband died very suddenly nine years ago. He had said sometime later that he hoped he would go quickly and for that I was thankful. The night before, he had spent some time at his desk and when I eventually went to it I discovered various papers which I needed and a Bereavement booklet all visible. I like to think that he knew what was ahead of him and that he had been prepared even though his death was sudden.
Thanks for the very honest and personal memories – it makes the whole topic less abstract and more real…