GENERAL AUDIENCE: DEATH AS A MEETING WITH THE FATHER

VATICAN CITY, JUN 2, 1999 (VIS) - "Today it has become difficult to talk of death because wealthy society tends to shy away from this reality, the thought of which only causes anguish," said the Pope during this morning's general audience in St. Peter's Square.

The subject of this Wednesday's catechism was "Death as a Meeting with the Father." The Holy Father said that divine revelation has enabled man to understand that God "could not have created death because He does not delight in the death of the living. God's original project was different, but it was contrasted by the sin that man committed under the influence of the devil." Nonetheless, "with his death and Resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and its consequence, death."

Scripture, John Paul II went on, tells us that "the righteous need not worry as they are the elect, destined to receive the promised legacy; they will be placed at the right hand of Christ."

"Death, as experienced by the believer as a member of the mystical body, opens the way to the Father. ... As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 'Death, ... for those who die in Christ's grace, ... is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his Resurrection.'"

The Pope concluded by indicating: "It is necessary to pass through death, but in the certainty that we will meet the Father when 'the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality'."

At the conclusion of the audience, John Paul II invited those present to join him and the Church of Rome tomorrow, Solemnity of Corpus Christi, to pray for peace in the Balkans and the whole world.

In his greetings to Italian pilgrims he asked them to accompany him in prayer "during the pilgrimage to Poland which, God willing, I will start this Saturday. I ask you to pray in order that this trip, the longest I have undertaken to my native land, may bear the desired spiritual fruit."

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