How can I reconcile the Gospel’s message—where Caiaphas prophesies that one man must “#die” in place of the people—with the Catechism’s teaching that our power must never cause needless death, as I witness the innocent joy of our four‐week‐old puppies socializing at The Glenn, while I pray for a miracle for my son Daniel through the intercession of Fulton J. Sheen, who reminds me that readers of mystery stories marvel at how someone dies, but they do not, as the contemporaries of Dante and Michelangelo would have done, wonder about the eternal fate of those who “die“❓
Gospel
Many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do❓
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews,
but he left for the region near the desert,
to a town called Ephraim,
and there he remained with his disciples.Now the Passover of the Jews was near,
and many went up from the country to Jerusalem
before Passover to purify themselves.
They looked for Jesus and said to one another
as they were in the temple area, “What do you think❓
That he will not come to the feast❓”He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
“John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true.”
And many there began to believe in him.
Lent Day 36 Lectio Divina on the word “die“
There is something deeply unsettling about the word die. I hear it echoed in the word hospice, in the voice of my daughter-in-law, and in the trembling questions of my family. My son Daniel is dying—not in the abstract, but in the day-to-day. Yet even as his body weakens, I see something defiant in his eyes, something luminous. He does not die without purpose. In this house, death does not have the last word.
At The Glenn, new life stirs. Four-week-old puppies tumble over each other, clumsy and playful, blissfully unaware of mortality. And I marvel—how is it that such delicate life is so determined not to die❓ Watching them, I realize: life insists. It pushes up through soil, it wags its tail, it suckles, it grows. Death visits, yes—but it doesn’t get the final say, not here, not yet.
And then I think of the world beyond these fence posts, the one where we die a thousand little deaths each day—of hope, of community, of care for creation. The Catechism reminds us we have power—but that power is not license. We are not gods. We are caretakers. To cause suffering or to let others die needlessly—human or creature—is not just unkind. It is unjust. It is unholy.
Still, I pray. For Daniel. For all who suffer. I do not know the outcome, but I know the One to whom I pray. Venerable Fulton J. Sheen wrote that modern minds puzzle over how a man dies, but saints concern themselves with what happens after. That is what I carry into each Rosary, each whispered plea: not only that Daniel might live, but that he might die well—should that be God’s will—and rise even better.
And so, I return to the Gospel—where the high priest, unwitting prophet, says something truer than he realizes:
The Catechism firmly states that human power has limits and that “it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly”.
FROM PARAGRAPH 130 OF THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME