Vatican City, Nov 3, 2017 / 03:43 am
On Friday Pope Francis said that in contemplating death we are reminded of our ultimate purpose – and how the choices we make here on earth will determine whether we eventually spend eternity in heaven.
"A fundamental mark of the Christian is a sense of anxious expectation of our final encounter with God," the Pope said Nov. 3. "Death makes definitive the 'crossroads' which even now, in this world, stands before us: the way of life, with God, or the way of death, far from him."
The Pope's reflection on life and death was made in a special Mass at St. Peter's Basilica for the souls of the cardinals and bishops who have died in the past year.
In his homily Francis reflected on the longing found in the words of the Responsorial Psalm: "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?"