At the Mass for Ash Wednesday at Mount Calvary Catholic Church, the pastor, Fr. Albert Scharbach, riffed on the old saying "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."  He explained that the saying implies that we can compartmentalize our lives and pretend that we can ignore the demands of the Gospel "for a time" without it being relevant to the rest of our lives.  He noted that serious Catholics would never subscribe to such an attitude.  But he then went on to describe how many serious Catholics, without realizing it, do subscribe to the saying "What happens in Lent, stays in Lent."  Like those who subscribe to the Vegas version, we compartmentalize our spiritual lives, pretending that Lent is only "for a time."

And that's unfortunate, because Lent is not supposed to be "for a time."  It is supposed to be a path to a permanent conversion, a permanent increase in holiness, a permanent new path for our lives.  This past Sunday Rose and I had occasion to attend the Traditional Latin Mass in Camarillo, CA.  In Traditional Catholicism, as well as in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, there is a short three week "pre-Lenten" season in which Catholics prepare for Lent.  I think the rest of the Latin Church has lost a great treasure by removing this pre-Lent from the calendar.  Anyway, the priest noted that Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until the day we die!  In other words, while we certainly and joyfully celebrate the great feast of Easter, we should not compartmentalize our lives by the liturgical seasons.  Rather, they should each have a permanent place in our lives, and should lead to permanent changes in how we live them.

Pope Francis Health Update: Vatican Issues Thursday Morning Statement

"The Vatican said in a statement that "the Holy Father participated in the rite of the blessing of the Sacred Ashes, which were imposed on him by the celebrant. He then received the Eucharist.

"Afterwards, he engaged in several work activities. During the morning, he also called Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza. In the afternoon, he alternated between rest and work."

I can't help wondering if, rather than receiving the Eucharist, and engaging in "several work activities," and given his age and the fact of his double pneumonia, his time would be better spent actually saying Mass, even from his bed or armchair, and preparing for his certain death, which seems to be not too far in the future.

I continue to pray for him, that he will have a "happy death" as Catholic tradition describes it.  One in which he repents of all his sins (we ALL have to do that!), receives absolution, Holy Viaticum, and the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to strengthen him in his last hours against all attacks of the devil, and is given the grace of detachment from all sin, even venial sin, so that when he receives the plenary indulgence of the Apostolic Pardon, he may attain to heaven and the Beatific Vision immediately upon his death, rather than spending any time in Purgatory.

For those who think I am praying for him to die, I am not.  I do not wish for his death.  While a just punishment for our sins, death for any man is a tragedy, insofar as it was not part of God's original plan for us.  But through His passion, death, and resurrection Jesus Christ has conquered death, changing death from a final damnation into a passage to eternal life, for those who choose to permit God to do that for them.  Still, death for all of us is a certainty.  So it is no lack of charity to pray for someone's happy death.  In fact, it is a great charity to do so.  It is in this context, that of an old man with double pneumonia, and the certainty that he will die one day in the not-too-distant future, that I pray for a happy death for Pope Francis.

I also pray for my own happy death (hopefully in the very far future, but not guaranteed to be), and the happy deaths of all those whom I love, and have entrusted them to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.  Would that we should all die this way!