Those who are closest to understanding death in this life are the saints.

For many of them it is a process of passing behind the veil to finally see God. But that is the appearance only if we are so purified in love that purgatory is not for us.

However, there is one thing that the saints also speak of: death is a mystery. None this side of Heaven has experienced it. And Saint Bernard has some interesting words for those of us who, still struggling with imperfections, are nonetheless on the way to God:

I do not say that this soul is deformed, but it has not attained to perfect beauty; for it worries and frets about many things… and is bound to be stained to some degree by the grime of worldly affairs. This however is quickly and easily cleansed at the hour of death made holy by the grace of a pure intention and a good conscience.

“Easily”! Saint Bernard is speaking of those who are very close to God already, having gone even through what Saint John of the Cross calls the “dark night of the spirit”. They are well purified but still imperfect. But for them he says it is easy to go straight to Heaven, without Purgatory!

The word is truly there: “easily”.

In reality, there are still imperfections and even indeliberate venial sins in them. But, there is something so mysterious about the process of separating the soul and the body, that Bernard thinks it is easy for their lives to become truly perfect and cleansed in the Divine Fire as they die.

Death is a mystery. The process of dying is nothing that we know by experience. This gives us many hopes and much to hope for, for ourselves and for others.

Most of us are not so near to perfection that it will be “easy” to be fully perfected in our dying moments. But, again, death is a mystery. Maybe it is not easy, but a beginner in the spiritual life can leap far ahead and even a sinner can convert in death. The possibility is real.

Death is a mystery. That is the teaching of the saints. And doesn’t Holy Church ask the same knowledge of us all? We ask Mother Mary, and indeed we can ask to entire Church of Heaven to

pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

– that mysterious hour of which we have no experiential knowledge yet, but which contains great possibility of detachment, alienation, suffering, virtue, peace, and welcome.