What I'd Tell Someone on Their Deathbed

Summary

When we invite people to follow Jesus, we usually describe the gifts a relationship with him brings into this life: freedom, inner peace, meaning, purpose, and the daily assurance that the Lord is real and present. But at the very end of a life, when there is no more future to live, the message becomes far more direct. Stripped of every argument, it comes down to a single, urgent invitation: God is real, you have a soul, and because of Jesus you still have a choice between eternity with God or eternity without him.

Key Points

The usual message versus the urgent one

• Most evangelization points to the fruits of faith in this life, the freedom, peace, meaning, and purpose that come by grace when we trust in Jesus.
• At a deathbed those future fruits no longer apply, so the message changes. There is no more time to live, only one last thing to say, and so it must be direct and urgent.

What you would say to someone dying without faith

• Tell them plainly: you are at the end of your life, and in a moment there will be no more moments. God is real and you have a soul.
• When they close their eyes and open them again, the truth of their life will be revealed, and they will see what they have chosen, either life with God or eternity apart from him.
• God is good and just. Because he is good, he will not force himself on anyone who does not want him, so the default of refusing God is an eternity without him, an existence of isolation, sorrow, and pride.
• Because God himself became one of us, lived, died, and sent his Holy Spirit, a real choice is now possible: eternity of pure love, joy, and freedom with God.

Faith as the beginning of trust

• To choose God is to begin, however weakly, to trust and love him, and that beginning is what faith is.
• A dying person may not yet know God well enough to trust or love him fully, but to say "I want you, Lord" is already the start of trust.

An invitation, not an argument

• This deathbed message makes no apologetic case, no historical evidence for the Resurrection, no polemics, only an invitation to walk through a door and respond.
• People can hear both the invitation and the arguments and still refuse. As Jesus teaches in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, those who will not listen to Moses and the prophets will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.

Prayer when words are not enough

• If the person is not interested, the next thing to do is simply to pray, asking for the intercession of Our Lady and the saints.
• In particular, pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the dying. Drawing on the promises Jesus made to Saint Faustina (private revelation the Church has affirmed), there are countless accounts of even hardened sinners turning to God in their final moments while this prayer was offered for them.

Why wait?

• That final moment is coming for every one of us, a moment after which there will be no more chances and no "give me one more chance."
• So the invitation is for now, not later: if you have never been baptized, go to a Catholic church and ask; if you have fallen away, go to confession and be healed and restored; wherever you are, pray. Because of Jesus, if you choose God, you receive God.

Notable Quotes

"Send Lazarus to my father's house... so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torments." ... "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if someone were to rise again from the dead." — Luke 16:27-31