Believers will often say to children when someone close to them has died: “your grandad has gone to heaven” or better “Jesus has taken your grandma to heaven.” It’s a way to reassure the child and us too that the dead have gone to a better place. We cannot know that for sure, though, but we are trying to express and share our hope in God’s merciful judgment.

On this Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost, the Church gives us readings which seem to straddle the borderline between death and heaven. St. Stephen is already seeing the Beatific Vision as he is condemned and stoned to death. St. John in the Apocalypse is also having a vision of the end of time and the final encounter between Jesus and the Bride, the Church. Jesus Himself, on the night before He dies, is enraptured in prayer to the Father asking that the oneness and glory of the Trinity be shared with those who believe in Him both now and in the future. Stephen, John and Jesus are all still on earth but the mystical experience of prayer they are having somehow transposes them into eternity as they are on the brink of death, in the case of Stephen and Jesus.

The truth is that prayer and death, the passage from this world to the next, are intimately linked. All our prayer, especially the Mass, is a spiritual passage from earth to heaven. What we do here at Mass only has any power or effect because it shares in what is happening in heaven where Jesus eternally offers His Body and Blood to the Father on our behalf. In Holy Communion especially, our earth meets Christ’s heaven. If prayer is talking and listening to God, then we are reaching beyond death when we pray. In fact, prayer is an anticipation of death because in it we surrender ourselves to God and God graces us with the blessings of heaven. Prayer is also therefore a preparation for death. The more and the better we pray, the readier we will be to “go to heaven” or, better, to let Jesus take us to Himself, so that where He is, we too shall be.

The readings offer us something more. They actually give us words to use as we are dying and as we die. Take the case of St. Stephen. He saw heaven opened and Jesus at the right side of the glory of the Father. At any time in life, but especially as we approach death, our prayer can be: Lord, open heaven for me. Jesus, that I may stand with you beside the Father. Father, that I may see your glory. Even during the violent pain of his dying, Stephen can pray for his enemies and surrender himself to Jesus. Our prayer can be: Lord, I forgive all who have hurt me and ask you to forgive all the hurt I have caused others and You. Jesus, into your hands I commit my spirit. The words of Stephen show deep faith and trust in Jesus to welcome him and an awareness that his own heart must be as merciful as His Lord’s.

The words of St. John in the second reading also teach us what dispositions we can have when our time comes to pass from this life. I will just mention a few of them. The first thing is an attitude of longing, not for death itself, but for the Lord to come. John has Jesus say: “let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” Our prayer can be: Lord, I long for you. I desire the water of life. Come to me, bring me to Yourself and refresh my soul with the water of life. In this reading, we also hear Jesus say: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Not a beginning or an end, but the beginning and the end. All comes from Him and goes to Him. He is the root not just of David but of each one of us. Thus our prayer can be: Lord, I thank you for being my Alpha, for the gift of my very self; and I ask you in Your mercy to draw together all the strands of my life and relationships and to bring them to their healing and completion in You, my Omega.

Jesus also speaks of our moral life in metaphorical language. After saying that He will repay each one for what he or she has done, He says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life.” These robes refer to the moral life and they need to be washed white in the blood of the Lamb. In other words, our moral life needs to be purified by the love, the Spirit of Jesus. This restored moral integrity is needed if we are to have the right to the tree of life, to enter into the glory of heaven. Here, our prayer can be: Lord, I confess my sins to you. Bathe me in the water and blood of your Cross. Wash me more and more from my sin that my whole being may live with eternal life, that I may have the right to eat of the tree of life.

Finally, there are the words of Jesus in prayer to the Father. He prays that we who believe will be one as He and the Father are one. He says that the result of this will be that the rest of the world will believe and also become part of that oneness. The stuff of this oneness is the love of the Father for the Son, that love being the Holy Spirit. Jesus also speaks of the glory the Father gave him and how He wants us to see that glory, another way of speaking of the Beatific Vision. Jesus wants the love of the Trinity to be in us and most especially He Himself wants to be in us. Our prayer can be: Lord, I desire to see Your glory and to experience the fullness of Your divine love and glory. You made this beautiful prayer as Your life on earth drew to its end: let me share in Your prayer as my own life on earth draws to an end. I pray for all those who have been in any way united with me during my life that You will bring us safely together to see Your glory. As You call me to Yourself, grant me a noble and generous heart like Yours. Help me to pray for all people that Your dream of the unity of humanity in God will become reality. Be in me before I die and as I die so that when I am dead to this world I will be in You for ever.

See how prayer based on the Word of God helps smooth and support our spiritual path to, and beyond, death. It catches death up into an ascending movement towards God. Certainly, it may not be easy for many reasons to pray or remember to pray like this as death approaches, but if we begin to pray this way now, we will be preparing our hearts and minds for the most important journey of our lives, our ascent to God. We can whittle prayers like these down to a few words and impulses of the heart knowing that, behind them, there lies a rich and deep reservoir of love, faith and hope in our Alpha and our Omega. May His Name for ever be blessed as He comes and takes us to heaven!