Nunc et in hora nostrae
Carol Kennedy writes on the hour of death in Sixty Seconds of Fear.
I first thought seriously about this a couple of years ago, when I saw The Perfect Storm. I couldn't get the last scenes of the crew out of my head, showing the Andrea Gail flipped and flooding, and the fishermen standing chin-deep in water, knowing they were about to die. After September 11th, when we all learned about the last phone calls of the victims, I was thinking about it again.
How would I react in that situation -- knowing that my death was not to be in the hazy, far-off future, but was to be in the next sixty seconds? Would I be frozen with fear?
In The Spiritual Combat, Dom Scupoli warns of the temptations to despair that can come at the hour of death. Would I have the presence of mind to make a final act of contrition and to trust in the Divine Mercy?
