NOTES for Php 1:21

In these words of the apostle Paul, is expressed all the novelty, all the specificity of the Christian relation towards life and death. Effectively, because the way we behave towards death, is completely defined by our relation towards life.

If life for us is above all our biological existence, then we hang on to it with all strength, and health becomes our god, we are so afraid of nothing, like death; this death anxiety poisons every second of our being. If life for us is above all the spiritual being, the body becomes for us a constant brake on the road of the "darkness of the spirit ", and excarnation, the physical death is perceived as extremely good, and the physical life here below - as an annoying and absurd retention.

The purport of life for Christians is in union with Christ, which already comes true here and now, and continuous to a large extent after the physical death. That is why, on one hand, life is not absurd in this world and there is no desire to part from it as quick as possible, and on the other hand, there is no death anxiety. Furthermore, as Paul writes somewhere else, here is " a glass, darkly ", and after - "face to face" (see 1Cor. 13:12), that is why death is gain, but gain not of such a level, for which it is necessary to cut all links, relations and services constituting Christ's life in our life here below. It is then clear that, when we are sick, we pray for the cure and we undergo treatment, but if death comes, we can accept it as a "sister" (according to Francis of Assisi).