Returning to the Kingdom of God<br/><br/>
On Sunday, November 5, Pope Benedict XVI delivered an address to thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square with the theme of ‘death’, before the midday Angelus.<br/><br/>
“Human beings are influenced by the civilization of comfort, and they harbour fear towards death, because human beings have a natural vocation to life and happiness.  However, to die, is part of life and not only of its end.”<br/><br/>
“St. Francis described death in his Canticle of Creatures as ‘Sister Bodily Death’.  We must not fear the death of the body.”<br/><br/>
“The message of the liturgy of the Easter Season:  By dying, Christ destroyed death, and death is no longer the venom.  If in Christ human life is a departure ‘from this world to the Father’ (John 13:1), the hour of death is the moment in which this departure takes places in a concrete and definite way.”<br/><br/>
“The authentic death, which one must fear, is that of the soul, called by the Book of Revelation ‘second death’ (20:14-15; 21:8). In fact, he who dies in mortal sin, without repentance, locked in prideful rejection of God's love.”<br/><br/>
“Through the intercession of Mary Most Holy and of St. Joseph, let us pray to the Lord for the grace to prepare serenely to depart from this world, when he wills to call us, with the hope of being able to be with him eternally, in the company of the saints and of our deceased loved ones.”<br/><br/>
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