Paperback: Hic jacet pulvis, cinis et nihil. (Here lies dust, ashes, and nothing more). - Inscription on the tombstone of Antonio Cardinal Barberini, Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins, Rome
Behind monastery walls, men of God spend their lives preparing for the passage of death. Best-selling French author Nicolas Diat set out to find what their deaths can reveal about the greatest mystery faced by everyone - the end of life.
How to die? How to respond to our fear of death? To answer these and other questions, Diat travelled to eight European monasteries including Solesmes Abbey and the Grande Chartreuse. Through extraordinary interviews with monks, he learned that their death experiences are varied and unique, with elements of peace, pain, humility, sorrow, and joy.
These monks have the same fears, torments, and sorrows as everyone else, Diat discovered. What is exemplary about them is their humility and simplicity. When death approaches, and its hand reveals its strength, they are like happy and naïve children who wait with impatience to open a gift. They have complete confidence in the mercy of God.
In reading A Time To Die, we better understand that death is the most important act of earthly existence. All life is made to explode, to go farther, to merge with Life, with God. (Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments)
A Time To Die (2019) is translated from the French by Mary Dudro and illustrated by David le Merrer.
About the author: Nicolas Diat is a French journalist and author. He is the co-author with Cardinal Robert Sarah of the internationally best-selling books God or Nothing, The Power of Silence, and The Day Is Now Far Spent.
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