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Dying and the Virtues
In this rich book Matthew Levering explores nine key virtues that we need to die (and live) love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage. Retrieving and engaging a variety of biblical, theological, historical, and medical resources, Levering journeys through the various stages and challenges of the dying process, beginning with the fear of annihilation and continuing through repentance and gratitude, suffering and hope, before arriving finally at the courage needed to say goodbye to one’s familiar world. Grounded in careful readings of Scripture, the theological tradition, and contemporary culture, Dying and the Virtues comprehensively and beautifully shows how these nine virtues effectively unite us with God, the One who alone can conquer death.
- GenresTheologyNonfictionDeath
360 pages, Hardcover
Published January 23, 2018
4 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Levering
122 books57 followersMatthew Levering (PhD, Boston College) is professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Ezra & Nehemiah in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. He is also coauthor of Holy People, Holy Land and Knowing the Love of Christ.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 17, 2018
Summary: An exploration of scripture, theological resources, and contemporary writing that considers the virtues that help the Christian believer to both live and die well.
Death is something we don't like to talk about and much of our culture lives in a conscious effort to deny that all of us have a terminal condition. Sooner or later, we will die. From exercise to diets to medical breakthroughs to transhumanism, we are trying to extend our lives. Sometimes, we just keep ourselves too busy to think about it. Yet the refusal to face our deaths leaves us and our families unprepared when the time comes. More than this, it leads us to neglect important virtues important for both how we live and when we die.
This last is the focus of Matthew Levering's book. Levering, a Catholic theologian, explores nine virtues through multiple lenses of scripture, theological writing, and contemporary sources: love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage. I found time and again that his explorations brought fresh insights to familiar passages, and new perspectives I had not previously considered.
Levering begins with Job and the fundamental fear and objection Job raises--that God would annihilate the existence of one who loves him. In God's answer, really, God's questions, Job understands that a God who can so create and order and sustain the world may be trusted, against the horror of death, to lovingly sustain him, inviting to live lives of love. He goes on in chapter two to consider sources from Susan Sontag and David Rieff to Josef Pieper and Robert Bellarmine and how they address the existential questions death poses of meaning in our lives, where we find the will to live, and how we might live in hope, believing and meditating on the unseen realities both of the souls we possess and the promises of our future state. Chapter three, then, focuses on faith through exploring what it is that dying people want through the work of a doctor and a hospice worker who describe the longing for closure, for reconciliation with oneself, with people, and for some, with God. Jesus, whose life and death make reconciliation and communion possible, calls us to meet him, and find in him these deep longings through faith.
I had never thought of Stephen's sermon in Acts 7 as a speech of penitence but rather one of indictment. He invites us in chapter four to see instead Stephen speaking prophetically in deep penitence for Israel's sins as well as in gratitude for the grace that is greater than our sins. He then turns (chapter five) to the dying gratitude of Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa. He writes:
"Gregory and Macrina complicate this notion of 'dignity' and of 'hope.' Macrina shows that 'who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity.' But dignity does not reside in our achievements and merely human relationships. Macrina's 'dignity' consists primarily in her participation in the church's liturgical life, through which the people of God offer themselves in Christ as a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and which extends itself in works of mercy. Prayerful praise and thanksgiving stand at the core of Macrina's conception of human dignity" (p. 98).
Her participation in this rich liturgical worship both enables her to live with thankfulness in life but with gratitude that she shares in the resurrection to come. Our identification with Christ and his people in both penitence and gratitude leads us into solidarity (chapter six), the experience of finding comfort in our own suffering in our solidarity with the sufferings of Christ, and compassion for the sufferings of others through our communing with Christ's sufferings.
But why does death so often involve suffering, sometimes severe? While many of us long for a peaceful passing, this is often not granted. In chapter seven, he looks at Mark 10:45 and the idea of ransom as a kind of tribulation by which Jesus delivers Israel out of the exile that was a consequence of her prideful rejection of God. Levering explores Aquinas and how suffering, both the humbling of Christ, and the stripping us of the things by which we find honor, call us into a "new exodus" of humility that is the way of salvation. Humbling leads to surrender (chapter eight), the readiness to offer up our lives to God, a surrender we often fiercely fight. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick helps us in this in reminding us of the healing work of Christ in us, to which we surrender ourselves in death that we may be raised up in Christ. Finally, in chapter nine, Levering considers the courage involved in bidding goodbye to life as we know it. He considers the work of Richard Middleton and Paul Griffiths, one emphasizing the continuities of our future state with this life, the other the discontinuities. Courage is to face this fear of this unknown future and to "boldly go" in the promise of Christ.
Levering's argument throughout this book is that we do not merely need these virtues in our dying hours, but that these are the virtues Christians are meant to live by. Throughout, he articulates a vision of these found in union in Christ and nourished by the liturgical and sacramental life of the church, as we live into the story of scripture, finding our own story in its pages.
While some aspects of Levering's treatment are distinctively Catholic, as would be expected of a Catholic theologian, the existential questions he explores through secular as well as Christian writers remind us of the stark realities with which all of us must deal. His focus is one all who name Christ can affirm, our union with Christ, our fundamental belief in a God who is love, and the virtues that follow. Levering opens up a conversation we desperately need to have in the church: what does it mean to die well in Christ? It is needed not only to aid us in our final days, but also because we cannot truly understand what it is to live well in Christ, until we have understood what it is to die well in Him. The conversation has been going on for centuries, even millenia. In the pages of Levering's book, we join those from Job to Aquinas to Mother Theresa who have wrestled with these realities and lived virtuously in the face of death through their faith in God and union with Christ.
___________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Death is something we don't like to talk about and much of our culture lives in a conscious effort to deny that all of us have a terminal condition. Sooner or later, we will die. From exercise to diets to medical breakthroughs to transhumanism, we are trying to extend our lives. Sometimes, we just keep ourselves too busy to think about it. Yet the refusal to face our deaths leaves us and our families unprepared when the time comes. More than this, it leads us to neglect important virtues important for both how we live and when we die.
This last is the focus of Matthew Levering's book. Levering, a Catholic theologian, explores nine virtues through multiple lenses of scripture, theological writing, and contemporary sources: love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage. I found time and again that his explorations brought fresh insights to familiar passages, and new perspectives I had not previously considered.
Levering begins with Job and the fundamental fear and objection Job raises--that God would annihilate the existence of one who loves him. In God's answer, really, God's questions, Job understands that a God who can so create and order and sustain the world may be trusted, against the horror of death, to lovingly sustain him, inviting to live lives of love. He goes on in chapter two to consider sources from Susan Sontag and David Rieff to Josef Pieper and Robert Bellarmine and how they address the existential questions death poses of meaning in our lives, where we find the will to live, and how we might live in hope, believing and meditating on the unseen realities both of the souls we possess and the promises of our future state. Chapter three, then, focuses on faith through exploring what it is that dying people want through the work of a doctor and a hospice worker who describe the longing for closure, for reconciliation with oneself, with people, and for some, with God. Jesus, whose life and death make reconciliation and communion possible, calls us to meet him, and find in him these deep longings through faith.
I had never thought of Stephen's sermon in Acts 7 as a speech of penitence but rather one of indictment. He invites us in chapter four to see instead Stephen speaking prophetically in deep penitence for Israel's sins as well as in gratitude for the grace that is greater than our sins. He then turns (chapter five) to the dying gratitude of Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa. He writes:
"Gregory and Macrina complicate this notion of 'dignity' and of 'hope.' Macrina shows that 'who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity.' But dignity does not reside in our achievements and merely human relationships. Macrina's 'dignity' consists primarily in her participation in the church's liturgical life, through which the people of God offer themselves in Christ as a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and which extends itself in works of mercy. Prayerful praise and thanksgiving stand at the core of Macrina's conception of human dignity" (p. 98).
Her participation in this rich liturgical worship both enables her to live with thankfulness in life but with gratitude that she shares in the resurrection to come. Our identification with Christ and his people in both penitence and gratitude leads us into solidarity (chapter six), the experience of finding comfort in our own suffering in our solidarity with the sufferings of Christ, and compassion for the sufferings of others through our communing with Christ's sufferings.
But why does death so often involve suffering, sometimes severe? While many of us long for a peaceful passing, this is often not granted. In chapter seven, he looks at Mark 10:45 and the idea of ransom as a kind of tribulation by which Jesus delivers Israel out of the exile that was a consequence of her prideful rejection of God. Levering explores Aquinas and how suffering, both the humbling of Christ, and the stripping us of the things by which we find honor, call us into a "new exodus" of humility that is the way of salvation. Humbling leads to surrender (chapter eight), the readiness to offer up our lives to God, a surrender we often fiercely fight. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick helps us in this in reminding us of the healing work of Christ in us, to which we surrender ourselves in death that we may be raised up in Christ. Finally, in chapter nine, Levering considers the courage involved in bidding goodbye to life as we know it. He considers the work of Richard Middleton and Paul Griffiths, one emphasizing the continuities of our future state with this life, the other the discontinuities. Courage is to face this fear of this unknown future and to "boldly go" in the promise of Christ.
Levering's argument throughout this book is that we do not merely need these virtues in our dying hours, but that these are the virtues Christians are meant to live by. Throughout, he articulates a vision of these found in union in Christ and nourished by the liturgical and sacramental life of the church, as we live into the story of scripture, finding our own story in its pages.
While some aspects of Levering's treatment are distinctively Catholic, as would be expected of a Catholic theologian, the existential questions he explores through secular as well as Christian writers remind us of the stark realities with which all of us must deal. His focus is one all who name Christ can affirm, our union with Christ, our fundamental belief in a God who is love, and the virtues that follow. Levering opens up a conversation we desperately need to have in the church: what does it mean to die well in Christ? It is needed not only to aid us in our final days, but also because we cannot truly understand what it is to live well in Christ, until we have understood what it is to die well in Him. The conversation has been going on for centuries, even millenia. In the pages of Levering's book, we join those from Job to Aquinas to Mother Theresa who have wrestled with these realities and lived virtuously in the face of death through their faith in God and union with Christ.
___________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
June 1, 2022
This is both a stirring and stimulating book that shakes the reader (well it shook me). Levering has done an amazing job of confronting us with death, it's starkness and reality, as well as the hope we have in Christ. We need both. Each chapter, as per Levering's usual style, takes a conversation partner or two and moves back and forth through the discussion.
From Job, to meditating on our death, a brilliant but harrowing chapter on "What dying persons want", repentance (we die as members of the church and body of Christ), gratitude, redemptive suffering (how our suffering in death fits within Christ's own ), humility, surrender, and finally the courage to leave this world.
The final chapter contains a very good, but all too brief, discussion of the new creation. Using Paul J Griffith's work ("Decreation") as a foil, Levering critiques N.T. WRight and the neo-calvinists like Richard Middleton and their vision of the new creation, with its tendency to a "business as usual" view of life in the new creation. There is some validity to this critique, not because the concept of a renewed creation is faulty, but because the discontinuities are not sufficiently accounted for in this view.
For example: 1. it is light on the Beatific Vision; 2. it underplays the impact of the discontinuities and their implications: e.g., what is life like without marriage relations, family living etc? What kind of society is the new creation, these questions might be impossible to resolve, but they highlight significant "breaks" with life as we have it now. We won't be in the semi-detached, with the wife, the kids and the chocolate labrador - will we! So what does human look like? What about work? and so on...
Levering is as stimulating as ever, and I commend this book as the kind of book we need.
From Job, to meditating on our death, a brilliant but harrowing chapter on "What dying persons want", repentance (we die as members of the church and body of Christ), gratitude, redemptive suffering (how our suffering in death fits within Christ's own ), humility, surrender, and finally the courage to leave this world.
The final chapter contains a very good, but all too brief, discussion of the new creation. Using Paul J Griffith's work ("Decreation") as a foil, Levering critiques N.T. WRight and the neo-calvinists like Richard Middleton and their vision of the new creation, with its tendency to a "business as usual" view of life in the new creation. There is some validity to this critique, not because the concept of a renewed creation is faulty, but because the discontinuities are not sufficiently accounted for in this view.
For example: 1. it is light on the Beatific Vision; 2. it underplays the impact of the discontinuities and their implications: e.g., what is life like without marriage relations, family living etc? What kind of society is the new creation, these questions might be impossible to resolve, but they highlight significant "breaks" with life as we have it now. We won't be in the semi-detached, with the wife, the kids and the chocolate labrador - will we! So what does human look like? What about work? and so on...
Levering is as stimulating as ever, and I commend this book as the kind of book we need.
June 11, 2019
Levering is a Roman Catholic scholar who engages helpfully with Protestants often. This book addresses the challenges of dying (without diminishing them) while at the same time affirming that we can approach death in Christ with key virtues including love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage. I personally appreciated the variety of sources he engaged–secular, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and more.
December 16, 2023
I read this book as a part of a class on Death. After we had finished reading from this book—but still during the class—my grandmother passed away. Having read the majority of this book beforehand (all but the conclusion), it helped provide me with comfort. It additionally helped me better care for my fellow family members who were also experiencing the loss of my grandmother.
Levering treats the subject of death so well. He isn’t flippant or light about it, but he also does not fill the reader with a sense of dread. While the topic may be uncomfortable, Levering does a great job of easing that tension and reminding the reader to focus their attention on God.
Levering is a Catholic, and it is a bit evident in Dying and the Virtues, specifically Chapter 8. This does not mean that this book is not beneficial to Protestants. The book 100% is beneficial to Protestants, but one could skip over Chapter 8 if they wished and it would have no significant impact on their understanding of the subject of death.
Additionally, the formulaic setup of each chapter and their relatively short nature made reading enjoyable. I always knew what to expect when reading a chapter. This book is not boring and I highly recommend it.
Levering treats the subject of death so well. He isn’t flippant or light about it, but he also does not fill the reader with a sense of dread. While the topic may be uncomfortable, Levering does a great job of easing that tension and reminding the reader to focus their attention on God.
Levering is a Catholic, and it is a bit evident in Dying and the Virtues, specifically Chapter 8. This does not mean that this book is not beneficial to Protestants. The book 100% is beneficial to Protestants, but one could skip over Chapter 8 if they wished and it would have no significant impact on their understanding of the subject of death.
Additionally, the formulaic setup of each chapter and their relatively short nature made reading enjoyable. I always knew what to expect when reading a chapter. This book is not boring and I highly recommend it.
August 24, 2024
Levering writes about how the virtues help us get through the difficulties of dying, giving us new perspectives and helping us surrender so that we grow closer to Christ. Reading this book helped me realize my own thoughts about dying, informed by my faith and knowledge of the Bible. I have never feared being 'annihilated', since my soul is eternal. Nor do I doubt the purpose and value of suffering. Of course, it is easy to say such a thing--the real test is living (or dying, I should say) in a way that demonstrates that faith.
"In the midst of life, we are in death..." Some of us are blessed to have an awareness that our lives are drawing to a close, and that seems a gift in comparison to forgetting that all our days are in God's hand and we really don't know how much time we have!
"In the midst of life, we are in death..." Some of us are blessed to have an awareness that our lives are drawing to a close, and that seems a gift in comparison to forgetting that all our days are in God's hand and we really don't know how much time we have!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews