An “absolutely magnificent” book (The New Republic)—the fruit of almost two decades of study—that traces the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the present day. A truly landmark study, The Hour of Our Death reveals a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perceptions of life in relation to death, each stage representing a virtual redefinition of human nature. Starting at the very foundations of Western culture, the eminent historian Phillipe Ariès shows how, from Graeco-Roman times through the first ten centuries of the Common Era, death was too common to be frightening; each life was quietly subordinated to the community, which paid its respects and then moved on. Ariès identifies the first major shift in attitude with the turn of the eleventh century when a sense of individuality began to rise and with it, profound consequences: death no longer meant merely the weakening of community, but rather the destruction of self. Hence the growing fear of the afterlife, new conceptions of the Last Judgment, and the first attempts (by Masses and other rituals) to guarantee a better life in the next world. In the 1500s attention shifted from the demise of the self to that of the loved one (as family supplants community), and by the nineteenth century death comes to be viewed as simply a staging post toward reunion in the hereafter. Finally, Ariès shows why death has become such an unendurable truth in our own century—how it has been nearly banished from our daily lives—and points out what may be done to “re-tame” this secret terror. The richness of Ariès's source material and investigative work is breathtaking. While exploring everything from churches, religious rituals, and graveyards (with their often macabre headstones and monuments), to wills and testaments, love letters, literature, paintings, diaries, town plans, crime and sanitation reports, and grave robbing complaints, Aries ranges across Europe to Russia on the one hand and to England and America on the other. As he sorts out the tangled mysteries of our accumulated terrors and beliefs, we come to understand the history—indeed the pathology—of our intellectual and psychological tensions in the face of death.

A moving exploration of families facing death, in the voices of those affected in one rural corner of Portugal.

AriA]s traces Western man's attitudes toward mortality from the early medieval conception of death as the familiar collective destiny of the human race to the modern tendency, so pronounced in industrial societies, to hide death as if it were an embarrassing family secret. -- Newsweek

"What do we know about immortality? We can be certain that the body does not survive death. Once the heart stops circulating blood, the brain is no longer nourished and begins to decay. On the basis of medical evidence it would seem that, within a quarter of an hour, the personality is irreparably destroyed and the individual ceases to exist. But now there is mounting scientific evidene for a life after death. This book is the product of extensive interviews of over 1,000 doctors and nurses who have been present when cases of 'postmortem existence' have occurred. Extensive computer analyses of their observations have been made. The results are reported in this first truly scientific investigation of the experiences of the dying at the hour of death. What these doctors and nurses have witnessed cannot be explained away by medical, psychological, cultural, or other conditioning. Yet it may answer the fundamental question of human existence -- is there life after death?"--back cover.

After landing in jail for making bombs for the IRA, Davy McCutcheon escapes and seeks out his ex-fiancée, who has tried to move on with her life in Vancouver, Canada.

As Catholics, we believe in the resurrection of the body. We profess it in our creed. We're taught that to bury and pray for the dead are corporal and spiritual works of mercy. We honor the dead in our Liturgy through the Rite of Christian burial. We do all of this, and more, because when Jesus Christ took on flesh for the salvation of our souls he also bestowed great dignity on our bodies. In Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body, Scott Hahn explores the significance of death and burial from a Catholic perspective. The promise of the bodily resurrection brings into focus the need for the dignified care of our bodies at the hour of death. Unpacking both Scripture and Catholic teaching, Hope to Die reminds us that we are destined for glorification on the last day. Our bodies have been made by a God who loves us. Even in death, those bodies point to the mystery of our salvation.

This internationally acclaimed study that cites scientific evidence for life after death gets an update -- and reveals new proofWhat They Saw ... At the Hour of Death has garnered worldwide acclaim since its original publication in 1977. Now, as the recent success of the best-selling Embraced by the Light points to a continuing interest in the topic of life after death, the startling -- and comforting -- findings of researchers Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson are brought completely up to date.Based on a four-year study involving almost 50,000 terminally ill patients, observed by hundreds of physicians and nurses in the U.S. and India, the conclusions reached by Osis and Haraldsson are compelling and optimistic. In that first scientific investigation of the hour just before death, doctors found that the patients in India and the U.S. had startling experiences -- such as visions and elevated moods -- that were not due to their medical conditions, and that the basic experience was the same for both cultures. Universal feelings of serenity and peace and awareness of another reality indicate that perhaps death should not be so fe

This study contributes to the revival of a more full-blooded Marian teaching and attempts to take the path set by ressourcement theology in recovering the robust voice of witness to Mary. Aidan Nichols, OP, works through the biblical, patristic, and medieval sources and introduces readers to the robust scriptural and theological bases for the Churchs celebration of Mary. He argues for the crucial relevance of Mary in the theological articulation of the gospel, the celebration and practice of the liturgy, and the sacramental life of the Church.

In this book, Haffner offers a clear and structured overview of theology and doctrine concerning Mary set in a historical perspective. He outlines the basic scheme of what constitutes Mariology set in the context of other forms of theological enquiry, and working through the contribution of Holy Scripture he proceeds to examine each of the fundamental doctrines that the Church teaches about Our Lady. From the Immaculate Conception to Mary's continuing Motherhood in the Church as Mediatrix of all graces, the reader will find here a sure and steady guide, faithful to tradition and offering a realist perspective, not reducing the concrete aspects of Mary's gifts and privileges to mere symbols on the one hand, and not confusing doctrine and devotionalism on the other.

According to Hebrews, the Son of God appeared to "break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." What does it mean to be enslaved, all our lives, to the fear of death? And why is this fear described as "the power of the devil"? And most importantly, how are we--as individuals and as faith communities--to be set free from this slavery to death?In another creative interdisciplinary fusion, Richard Beck blends Eastern Orthodox perspectives, biblical text, existential psychology, and contemporary theology to describe our slavery to the fear of death, a slavery rooted in the basic anxieties of self-preservation and the neurotic anxieties at the root of our self-esteem. Driven by anxiety--enslaved to the fear of death--we are revealed to be morally and spiritually vulnerable as "the sting of death is sin." Beck argues that in the face of this predicament, resurrection is experienced as liberation from the slavery of death in the martyrological, eccentric, cruciform, and communal capacity to overcome fear in living fully and sacrificially for others.