This “second death” that St. Francis speaks of in his famous Canticle to Brother Sun is rather classic spiritual language.  Why?  Because almost all religions in some form or another say that we must “die before we die” to understand and to enter larger realms.

It is rather telling that recent American fundamentalism has tried to do an end-run around this traditional wisdom by speaking far too glibly and quickly of being “born again.”  Obviously you cannot be born a second time unless there is some kind of death first and beforehand.  Even much of spiritual psychology would say the same today, but now perhaps we use the language of letting go of the past, moving beyond denial, facing our shadow self, downward mobility, living more simply, or AA’s “fearless moral inventory.”

To give us a different entranceway into this universally recognized pattern let me offer you an honest and compelling quote from C.G. Jung’s Psychological Reflections (323).

 “The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, or exuberance, but death.  The end is now the goal.  The negation of life’s fulfillment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending.  Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die.  Waxing and waning make one curve.  In some secret hour in life’s midday the parabola is reversed.”

What we look at in this Holy Week with Jesus, and what we see in Francis’ Canticle to Brother Sun is the facing of a second death that “can do them no harm” because they faced and walked the process at least once before, probably many times, and they now know it did not end in death—but life.  In “some secret hour in life’s midday” they reversed the parabola and continued on life’s curve!  They stopped waxing and started saying yes to the necessary waning.  Francis then happily called the second death “Sister Death” and Jesus shouted out trustfully from the cross, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit."

If we have spent our life on this earth avoiding all forms of dying, “the first death,” then of course we can only face the second death with immense dread and fear.  It will do us little good to just worship and thank Jesus this week for “dying for us.”  We must know that he was much more telling us along with all spiritual traditions, St. Francis, and C.G. Jung that we must die too, that waxing and waning are the two sides of the one divine pattern of transformation.

If we want to “triumph over the last enemy, death” (1 Corinthians 15:26) as Paul says, we have to face the first enemies and little deaths, and sometimes big ones, that are offered us all along the way.  This is the practical and real message of Holy Week, and yet still the most avoided.  None of our egos like to die.  The soul understands.

Die Before You Die

By Rabia

Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.

So beautiful appeared my death —
knowing Who then i would kiss,
i died a thousand times before i died.

“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.

Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?

i was born when all I once
feared — i could
love.