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Session V

Session V

The Last Companion: Living so that Death Brings No Fear

Welcome and Opening

Welcome everyone to this final session in our series on Sister Death.

Over the past weeks we have explored Francis’ remarkable ability to speak of death not as an enemy but as a sister. We have reflected on mortality, ageing, loss, letting go, kenosis, transitus, and the hope of resurrection. Now we arrive at some of the most challenging words in the Canticle of the Creatures:

“Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are those
whom death will find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.”

These words can sound strange or even troubling to modern ears. Yet beneath them lies one of the most profound questions Francis ever asks: What kind of person is death finding us becoming?

This session is not really about judgement. It is about trust. It is about relationship. It is about learning how to live so deeply rooted in God’s love that death no longer has the final word.

Let us begin with a moment of silence.

Opening Prayer

(5 minutes)

Loving God, you are the source of our life,
the companion of our journey,
and the home to which we return.
As we reflect on mortality,
free us from fear,
deepen our trust,
and help us to hear the wisdom hidden
within these ancient words.
May we learn to live more fully,
love more generously,
and surrender more completely into your care.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Opening Reflection

What Will Death Find?

(10 minutes)

Imagine that Sister Death arrived unexpectedly today.

Not as punishment. Not as a threat. Simply as the final visitor on life’s journey.
What would she find?

Would she find peace or unfinished business? Would she find gratitude or regret? Would she find openness or resistance? Would she find someone learning to trust?

Take a few moments to reflect quietly and then, if appropriate, share with others.

What emotions arise when you think about your own mortality? What unfinished conversations or reconciliations come to mind? What would you most hope death would find within you?

Reflections

When Francis wrote these words he was nearing death himself. He was blind. His body was failing. He lived with constant pain. The Order he had founded was changing in ways he sometimes found difficult. Yet it was during this period that he completed the Canticle.

Many people assume the lines about “mortal sin” and the “second death” are primarily about judgement. Francis’ emphasis, however, lies elsewhere. The Canticle is overwhelmingly a song of praise. The movement of the entire poem is towards gratitude, trust, and surrender.

The phrase mortal sin was a theological term familiar to Francis’ generation. It referred not to ordinary mistakes or failures but to a deliberate turning away from God and neighbour. Francis knew human weakness too well to imagine that anyone could achieve perfection. His concern was not perfection but relationship.

The contrast is not between good people and bad people. It is between a life that remains open to love and a life that gradually closes itself to love. It is the difference between a life turned towards God and a life turned entirely in upon itself.

Francis believed that the deepest tragedy is not physical death. The deepest tragedy is becoming unable to receive grace.

The phrase the second death comes directly from the Book of Revelation. The first death is physical death. The second death is ultimate separation from God. Yet even here Francis’s emphasis remains hopeful.

He appears to echo Revelation 2:11:

“Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.”

For Francis, the point is not that some people earn salvation. The point is that a life rooted in God need not fear death.

The wider witness of Scripture helps us understand why Francis could speak so positively about death. In Romans 8 Paul writes:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Many modern Christians hear Francis’s words through this lens. The ultimate Christian hope is not escape from death but confidence that death cannot separate us from God’s love.

Jesus says in John 11:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”

And Paul proclaims in 1 Corinthians:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

For Francis, physical death was real and unavoidable, but it was never the final reality. The final reality was always God.

A modern paraphrase of Francis’s words might be:

“Blessed are those who have learned to entrust themselves to God, because physical death cannot ultimately destroy the life they have found in God’s love.”

Or perhaps more simply:

“Death may end our earthly life, but it cannot separate us from the God to whom we belong.”

That is why Francis can praise God through Sister Death. He does not deny death’s reality, nor does he pretend that dying is easy. Rather, he proclaims that God’s mercy and love are greater than death itself. For Francis, the last word belongs not to death, but to God.

Discussion Question

Francis suggests that the deepest tragedy is not physical death itself, but becoming closed to God’s love and grace. How does that challenge or change the way you think about death, salvation, and what it means to live well?

Follow-up Questions

  • What do you think Francis means by a life that is “open to love”?
  • Can you think of ways people gradually become closed off to love, grace, or relationship?

OR

  • I wonder whether Francis is really asking us, not, “What happens when we die?” but “How are we learning to live?” What do you think?

Several modern Franciscan writers help us understand these difficult lines.

Kajetan Esser reminds us that Francis spent his entire life learning to let go. Poverty was not primarily about possessions but about relinquishing control. The welcome of Sister Death was simply the final act of a lifelong surrender. Francis could welcome death because he had spent years placing himself in God’s hands. Esser’s work invites us to ask: What happens when we no longer need to control our future because we trust ourselves entirely to God?

Ilia Delio approaches Francis through the lens of creation and relationship. She argues that Francis understood all life as interconnected. Death is woven into the fabric of creation itself. Stars die so that planets can form. Forests decay so that new growth can emerge. Every stage of life involves endings and beginnings. From this perspective, Sister Death becomes part of the same divine mystery as birth, growth, and transformation. Delio suggests that death is not the opposite of life. Rather, death is one of the ways life unfolds within God.

Murray Bodo focuses on Francis’s humanity. He reminds us that Francis’s final years were marked by illness, blindness, disappointment, physical pain, and uncertainty. Yet it was during this period that Francis wrote the Canticle. Bodo sees this as deeply significant. Francis’s praise of Sister Death does not arise from comfort or optimism. It arises from faith forged through suffering. Francis learned trust over many years, and his friendship with Sister Death grew out of an even deeper friendship with God.

Together these writers suggest that Francis’s teaching is not really about death at all. It is about freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from control. Freedom to trust.

Wondering

  • I wonder which of these writers speaks most strongly to me at this stage of my life: surrendering control, accepting transformation, or growing in trust?

Many contemporary Christians would be cautious about interpreting Francis’s words as a simple division between the saved and the damned–though they’ve likely been heard that way in the past. Instead, they may hear them more spiritually and relationally.

The question becomes: What kind of person is death finding us becoming?
In this reading, mortal sin is less about individual offences and more about a way of living that resists love, compassion, truth, and relationship. It describes the gradual hardening of the heart. Whenever we become trapped by bitterness, consumed by resentment, isolated from others, unwilling to forgive, or resistant to grace, we experience something of the second death even before physical death arrives.

Conversely, to be found in God’s will is not to be perfect. It is to be moving, however falteringly, towards love. It is to be becoming more compassionate, more forgiving, more open, and more trusting.

Drawing on some contemporary theologians, one might say that the opposite of salvation is not punishment but isolation. The deepest human fear is abandonment. The Christian hope is not simply that something happens after death. It is that nothing—not suffering, failure, loss, or death itself—can separate us from God’s loving presence.

From this perspective, the second death can be understood as radical separation, while salvation is eternal participation in God’s life and love.
Francis’s words therefore become less a threat and more an invitation. Do not spend your life fleeing death. Spend your life learning how to live in love. Then when Sister Death arrives, she will not find a stranger. She will find someone already learning to trust the God who has been present all along.

Perhaps Francis is asking a question that remains deeply relevant today. When death eventually comes, what will it find? Will it find a life spent defending itself, controlling everything, clinging desperately to certainty and possession? Or will it find a life that has slowly learned the difficult art of letting go, receiving grace, loving generously, and trusting in a mercy larger than itself?

In that sense, the challenge of these words is not really about the moment of death. It is about how we choose to live now. Francis invites us to practise daily surrender, daily reconciliation, and daily love, so that when Sister Death finally arrives, she comes not as an enemy but as the last companion on the journey home to God.

 

Wondering

Choose one:

  • I wonder what Francis saw in his own life that enabled him to speak of death with such peace?
  • I wonder whether I spend more energy resisting my mortality than learning from it?
  • I wonder what it means, in my own circumstances, to be found in God’s will?
  • I wonder where bitterness, fear, resentment, or self-protection might be narrowing my heart?
  • I wonder what relationships in my life need healing or reconciliation?
  • I wonder what daily practices help me grow in trust, openness, and love?
  • I wonder how my understanding of death changes when I see it as part of life rather than its opposite?
  • I wonder what it would mean to welcome each day as preparation for the final journey into God’s love?

Closing Reflection

(5 minutes)

In this series we have travelled a long road. We began with wonder and gratitude. We reflected on mortality and the gift of life. We explored kenosis and the spiritual practice of letting go. We considered Transitus and the many small passages that shape our lives. We listened to Francis speak of Sister Death. And now we arrive at the deepest insight of all.

Francis does not invite us to become fascinated with death. He invites us to become free from fear.

The goal is not to die well. The goal is to live well. To live so deeply rooted in God’s love that death becomes not an interruption but a completion. Not an ending but a homecoming. Not a stranger but a sister.

The final challenge of the Canticle is therefore not, How will I die? The final challenge is, How shall I live?

Prayer

Lord God,
you have accompanied us through every season of life.
In joy and sorrow, in beginnings and endings,
in growth and loss, you have remained faithful.
Teach us to live with open hands.
Teach us to love generously.
Teach us to forgive freely.
Teach us to trust deeply.
And when our own Sister Death finally comes,
may she find us living in your mercy,
walking in your love,
and resting in your peace.
For neither death nor life,
nor anything else in all creation,
shall separate us from your love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.

May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May Christ walk beside us on every road.
May the Holy Spirit deepen our trust.
And may Sister Death,
whenever she comes,
find us already at home in the love of God.
Amen.
  • Sister Death

Introduction

Five Franciscan Study Reflections on Death, Dying, and Trust in God

Session III

Living Toward Death: Daily Kenosis and the many Transitus Experiences

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