Page 41 - HQ May June July 2020

Hope to Die

The Christian Meaning of Death

and the Ressurrection of the Body

Excerpts from the postscript of Dr. Scott Hahn’s powerful new book
written with Emily Stimpson Chapman

aster 2020 was always the scheduled release Not long after the Towers fell, Kimberly and I gath-
date for this book. Emily and I worked on it dur- ered the children to pray. Like us, they were struggling
Eing the summer of 2019, finished our edits over to make sense of what had happened and Hannah,
Christmas, and on February 28, 2020, a week before who had just turned 13, had a question for me.
the book was scheduled to go to press, filmed an epi- “Dad,” she said, “I have to
sode about it for the television know — are we all going to die?”
show Franciscan Presents. Then, “Yes,” I responded. “100 per-
days later, the coronavirus known cent. Definitely.”
as COVID-19 started spreading
across the United States. And I All the kids, looked at me, star-
stopped the presses. tled. I paused. Then, I continued.
I’ve never done that with a “Everyone’s going to die, Hannah.
book before. But I didn’t want to But I don’t think it will be today.”
put this book into the hands of I added, “But the
people still reeling from both the important thing, the real
rapid spread of the virus and the question, is not are we going to
societal changes that have fol- die, but are we ready to die?”
lowed without adding a few fi- Later, after we finished our
nal thoughts. Because death, for prayers, I turned the conversa-
many of us, just became a whole tion back to Hannah’s question. I
lot less abstract and life far more explained that while the mortality
uncertain. rate for each of us is 100 percent,
In so many ways, the situa- the immortality rate for each of us
tion in which our world suddenly is also 100 percent. Death is not
finds itself is unprecedented. But, the end. Not for anyone. Every
in other ways, it feels very famil- person who has ever lived is still
iar. alive in one state or another — a
state of grace or state of disgrace.
I’m thinking, of course, of
September 11, 2001. I still re- Dr. Hahn’s new book I then referenced St. John
member the shock and sorrow I felt watching the Twin Henry Newman’s sermon on “The
Towers fall. I also remember the uncertainty of the Individuality of the Soul.” In it, he reminds us:
days that followed. We didn’t know then if and when All those millions upon millions of human beings
the attacks would end. We didn’t know what more the who ever trod the earth and saw the sun successively
terrorists had in store for our country. All we knew are at this very moment in existence all together. This,
was that in the space of a few hours, thousands of our I think, you will grant we do not duly realize. All those
fellow Americans died horrible deaths. And we were Canaanites, whom the children of Israel slew, every
scared. one of them is somewhere in the universe, now at this
For many of us, 9/11 was a wake-up call — a re- moment, where God has assigned him a place. 1
minder that our comfortable settled lives could be up- I’m not sure how much of an impression the New-
ended in a moment, that death can always be just one man sermon made on the kids at the time, but it has
heartbeat away, and that nothing in this world is ever 1 John Henry Newman, “The Individuality of the Soul,” Parochial and
certain, least of all tomorrow. Plain Sermons (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 786.

42 MICHAEL May/June/July 2020 www.michaeljournal.org