Description
Eternal Rest: The Art of Dying Well - Study Guide - Augustine Institute
Eternal Rest presents the Church’s teaching about death and God’s response to it with wisdom and truth, gentleness and compassion, so that participants may think about and prepare for death in the light of Jesus Christ, the Author of life.
From the discussion about why there is such a thing as death and what happens to the soul after death, to how we can prepare ourselves well for our own death and what the Church calls the living to do after someone has died, the focus of Eternal Rest is a steady gaze on the promises of Jesus Christ. Such concentration on him gives encouragement to the grieving, endurance to the sick and dying, and a refreshed longing for the fulfillment of the Christian hope of the resurrection to all mortals living with the awareness of their mortality.
The Eternal Rest program is composed of the following sessions:
Session 1: The Story of Death
Where did death come from? What does death mean for the human person? Is it simply just part of life, or is it something else? In this first session, we discuss the story of death and God’s response to it: defeating death by dying and rising from the dead.
Session 2: The Afterlife
What happens after the moment of our death? Once the soul has been separated from the body, then what? What is the judgment? What is the difference between the particular judgment and the general judgment? What is heaven, hell, and purgatory? This session looks at the truth about what awaits the human person on the other side of death.
Session 3: The Hour of Our Death
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is one of the seven sacraments of the Church. But whom exactly is this sacrament for? What are its effects? In this session, we take a closer look at this beautiful sacrament and discover the role of this sacramental anointing in the spiritual struggle during serious illness, in the final stages of our temporal life, and at the hour of our death.
Session 4: The Faithful Departed
What is left for the living to do after someone dies? In this session, we talk about the final ways in which those still living on earth care for the body and soul of the dead. We discuss the work that remains for the living to do as we grieve for the deceased and as we turn to the work of preparing for our own death, and the hope in which we live and die as Christians.
This workbook is a supplement to the video series. Click THIS LINK to subscribe to the complete video series on the FORMED platform, from the Augustine Institute.
