Death – Locus Communis

Death as Sleep

[The adults] didn’t know being dead is only being asleep, and you’re bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep or in some better place. Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It

Recovery

Any recovery is but a stay of the death that is our common doom. Sheldon Vanauken, “A Severe Mercy,” chapter VII

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Death and Mourning

“Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as itContinue reading “Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Death and Mourning”

John Donne, Holy Sonnets

Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee doContinue reading “John Donne, Holy Sonnets”

Luther on Death

What is our death but a night’s sleep? For as through sleep all weariness and faintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had onlyContinue reading “Luther on Death”

Luther on Faith and Death

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.Martin Luther

The Night of Death

I walk into the night of death, truly the darkest night; yet I know who awaits me in the glorious morn. Helmut Thielicke

On the Passover

Tell me angel, what deterred you? The slaughter of the sheep, or the life of the Lord? You were deterred because you witnessed the mystery of the Lord accomplish in the sheep. The life of the Lord in the sacrifice of the sheep. The figure of the Lord in the death of the Sheep. Continue reading “On the Passover”