End of Days

Dear St. Dismas, thank you for your example of repentance and for interceding with the Lord on behalf of all who turn to Him in their final hour. Amen.

Feast of St Dismas
March 25th

Life is full of hard days. Pain comes in waves—sickness, loss, loneliness, or money troubles that never seem to end. Sometimes the hurt feels so heavy that a person thinks about ending it all. Suicide looks like a quick way out. But many faiths teach that it is a sin, one that opens the door to hell forever. I believe with all my heart that bearing a lifetime of pain here on earth is far easier than facing an endless punishment in hell. A short season of suffering beats eternal fire any day.

Think about time the way God made it. Our lives on earth are like a single page in a very long book in a very long series in a very huge library.. Even if you live eighty or ninety years and every one of them carries pain, that time still ends. One morning you wake up in heaven, or at least the pain stops when your body gives out. You may have cried every night, but the tears dry up. God sees your struggle. He knows you stayed faithful when it hurt. The Bible whispers that this world is not our home; we are just passing through. Pain here is temporary, like a storm that passes after a few hours.

Hell, though, is different. It has no clock. No sunrise to bring relief. No “this too shall pass.” If suicide breaks God’s rule against taking your own life, the punishment never stops. Imagine fire that burns but never consumes you. Or darkness that presses on your chest forever. No friends to talk to. No hope of tomorrow getting better. It is not a week, a year, or even a thousand years. It is infinity—time without end. No escape button. No second chance. That weight is too much for any soul to choose on purpose.

Picture two roads. One road has bumps and rocks, but it is only a few miles long. You walk it slowly, maybe limping, but you reach the other side and rest. The second road stretches forever. Every step brings fresh pain, and you never arrive anywhere. Which would you pick? Most of us would grit our teeth and walk the short, rough road. Life is that first road. Hell is the second.

Faith gives us strength to keep walking. When pain feels bigger than we can handle, we can pray. We can lean on family, pastors, or kind strangers God places in our path. Many people who once wanted to quit later say, “I am glad I stayed. Good things came after the hard part.” God does not promise easy days, but He promises He will never leave us. He carried the cross Himself—nails in His hands, thorns on His head—so He understands pain better than anyone.

Choosing life honors the gift God gave us. Our days, even the painful ones, have purpose. They build our character. They let us help others who hurt too. And when our time here ends naturally, we can stand before God with clean hands and say, “I trusted You through the storm.”

So if the dark thoughts come, remember this simple truth: a lifetime of pain, no matter how long or heavy, is still just a moment compared to forever. Hold on. Light a joint. Breathe. Reach out for help. God is near, and heaven waits for those who finish the race. The hurt will pass. Hell never does. Life, even with its scars, is the kinder choice.

Too many people have died around me lately. Friends. Family. Past loves. Brothers. Most older but a disturbing amount my age or younger. The grief often hits without warning: a strange tightness in my chest, scrolling past an old friend’s obituary, or the memory of holding my grandmother’s hand as she fought for her final breaths. Sometimes it’s simpler and stranger—glancing at my phone and realizing I still have half a dozen dead people in my contacts. (Once, caller ID actually rang from one of those numbers. Not cool.)

In those moments, mortality stops being abstract. We’re mortal. I’m mortal. This life ends—no do-overs, no extensions, no saved games to fall back on, no negotiation. The truth lands like a brick, and for once I don’t shove it away like I did when I was younger. I actually let it sit.

The feelings crash in, messy and overlapping. Fear arrives first and hardest. Death doesn’t care about my schedule or my bucket list. It could come tomorrow—a drunk driver, a random clot in this cursed leg, or my heart simply deciding it’s finished. The sheer randomness and infinite possibilities terrifies me.

I used to picture dying peacefully in my sleep, maybe surrounded by family, or at least leaving some meaningful mark. Instead I confront the possibility that it could all just… stop. Lights out. Gone. It feels like a cheap shot from the universe. Just a kick in the spiritual balls. A cosmic street fight. No rules. No promises.

And yet, right beside the fear, something calmer slips in. Not the brittle, forced “everything’s fine” peace I usually sell to myself, but something real. When I stop fighting the fact that I will die, the pressure releases. Tomorrow stops feeling like an enormous final exam. Suddenly the coffee has taste. Music becomes music again. I notice how the wind moves every leaf on the trees behind the restaurant next door. Background noise turns into the main event and my own personal concert.

I admittedly still dread the unknown—no one likes stepping out of existence—but there’s also relief in dropping the pretense of forever. No more chasing things that don’t matter. The fear keeps me awake and grateful; the peace lets me stop running myself into the ground. They don’t cancel each other—they coexist.

Joining my Lodge and learning Hiram’s legend gave me an unexpected lens on this strange fragility. Death is the great equalizer: Master Craftsman or newest apprentice, it claims everyone. Through ritual’s blind allegory, I faced death symbolically, watched the body rot beneath debris, and saw the spirit reborn. For a brief moment the earlier feelings of finality clashed with that promise of renewal.

My ideas about how death “should” happen have shifted too. I once wanted guarantees—painless, quick, maybe skipping straight past Purgatory to the Heavenly Gates. Reality offers no such promises though. Accepting that brings humility. You look at your life not with gloom, but with a stunned “fuck, I’m lucky to still be here.” type of mentality. You say the things you’ve held back. You stop wasting time on garbage that doesn’t count.

I’m told people who’ve stood at the edge often report the same arc in their final hours: terror is real, then something shifts. The struggle drains away, and a quiet settles in—like the soul finally exhaling. That’s the peace I want.

Bottom line: knowing you’re going to die doesn’t ruin life. Sometimes it illuminates it. The fear keeps you human. The peace sets you free. You walk a strange, beautiful line between being scared shitless and strangely okay with it all. And oddly enough, that’s exactly when you start really living—seeing in true color, hearing the hidden notes in songs you’ve known forever. In the final moments… you truly live.

Dear Lord, as a loyal Catholic I come before You with a modest request: when judgment comes, please apply ‘time served’ toward my Purgatory sentence before entering your kingdom.

Dealing with leftist liberals and their endless nonsense down here has felt like boot camp for the soul. Surely that counts toward time off?

The past few weeks have felt heavier than usual. The pain, once a familiar shadow, has sharpened into something relentless, digging deeper with every movement, every breath. Nights stretch long and broken—waves of ache pulling me awake again and again, leaving my mind foggy, thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind. Sleep, that quiet refuge, has become a battleground, and without it, even simple clarity feels out of reach. I find myself whispering, Lord, I need relief. Please.

Yet in the midst of this storm, a quiet certainty holds firm: I still trust in God’s plans, even when they remain hidden from me. I don’t see the full picture—why this intensity now, why this prolonged season—but I cling to the promise that He knows the path, that His ways are higher, purposeful, and ultimately good. Jeremiah 29:11 echoes in my heart: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I repeat it like a lifeline when doubt creeps in.

I’ve been through worse before—sharper spikes, darker valleys—and God carried me through each one. This sustained burn is different, testing endurance in new ways, but the truth remains: I’ve survived.

When the pain surges and words fail, I turn to what I can do: meditation to quiet the racing mind, focusing on slow breaths and His presence, letting the tension ease even if just a little. Prayer becomes my anchor—simple, honest conversations where I lay it all bare, asking for strength, for rest, for mercy. These practices don’t erase the hurt, but they shift my gaze upward, reminding me I’m not alone in it. They create small spaces of peace amid the chaos, helping me endure one more hour, one more night. A few puffs of the medicine as needed.

I’m weary, yes. Desperate for true relief. But I’m not without hope. God is weaving something through this—even if I can’t yet see the pattern. Until then, I keep reminding myself: He’s been faithful before. He’ll be faithful again. And in the waiting, His grace is enough.