Brother Richard

As he has done with every other being, he greets this being,

as one of our siblings.

She is sister death.

And so she is not to be something that brings fear, but rather a gift, a doorway, a beginning rather than an ending.

Be praised, my Lord, for sister bodily death, he says, from whom no one living can escape.

Woe to those who die in sin, but blessed are they who are found in your will, for the second death can do them no harm.

For Francis, the encounter with sister death

is an encounter of great intimacy with the very meaning of life.

A reminder that he shares with all of us that our life, however long it will be, and may it be long for you, will eventually have its ending.

The first breath inevitably leads to the last breath.

The journey goes only one way.

And the meditator tries to live in the awareness of death, not in a morbid way, but so as to live every succeeding moment of life to the fullest.

If we really remembered that the next moment is not promised, how would we live this moment?

How would we treat those around us?

How would we touch the earth?

How would we encounter one another?

This is the great gift that lies waiting for us at the end of the canticle of the creatures.

We have descended from the heavens in praising sun and moon and stars, earth, air, fire and water.

We have greeted one another in peace and now the meaning behind it all is revealed.

The last sibling we encounter