My mom's cousin, Father Otto Neudecker, was dying of cancer when I visited him in southern Minnesota in the fall of 1989. You wouldn't know it to look at him. He was at peace with himself and the world. That day he was playing back voice messages from his doctor, who repeatedly asked him to please call back and set an appointment to begin a round of treatment.

But Father Otto wasn't returning the calls. He had kept the cancer at bay with a macrobiotic diet. It had worked for five years. But now the cancer was back.

"It will be very painful if you do not take treatment," the doctor's message said. Father Otto shrugged and shut off the answering machine.

Otto was the sixth of nine children. One sibling married and had two children. One married but remained childless. One was mentally disabled and died young. Four became nuns. Another remained single. Otto became a priest. Out of nine children there were two grandchildren.

Otto grew up on his father Andrew's farm near Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. I was visiting him in Pine Island that day. We walked around the lawn of St. Michael's Church, brushing aside the fallen leaves with our feet.

"I love the autumn," he said. "It's the season of dying."

Father Otto had nothing to lose. He was not afraid to die. "I've lived long enough. I have no family of my own. There's no need for more treatment. I'm ready to go."

"To go." That's one of our euphemisms for dying. It's a good one. It indicates positive movement, a decision to move forward, and a passage from one place to another. Father Otto didn't say he was ready for life to end; he said he was ready to go.

Faithful Christians face death with a shrug. We believe in something more. We are grateful for the life we have received, and we anticipate eternal life with God. Death is a passage. It is not an end. It is a time to go.

As autumn slowly calcifies into winter, the church year reflects on the mystery of dying and rising. The month of November begins with a celebration in honor of all the saints and with prayers on behalf of the departed souls. In the weeks before Advent, the lectionary makes us think about ending and beginning, dying and rising.

Next Sunday's first reading (Daniel 12:1-3) contains the bible's earliest reference to resurrection. "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever." The Book of Daniel was probably written in the second or third century B.C. No other biblical book had used the expression "live forever." Even before Jesus revealed the resurrection, the climate of faith was opening toward belief in eternal life.

It was not all good news. Some people would live forever, but others would "be an everlasting horror and disgrace." Perhaps this sense of dread evolved from the "time unsurpassed in distress" that Daniel foretells.

The day of judgment was coming. Some would escape - those whose names would be "found written in the book." God's book had already been introduced in Exodus 32:33 and Psalms 69:28. In both instances, names written in the book were in danger of being blotted out. You wanted your name in that book on judgment day.

You also wanted to be protected by the great prince named Michael. Michael appears in the Old and New Testaments. In Jude 9 he is fighting with the devil over the body of Moses. In Revelation 12:7 he is at war with the dragon. Michael appears in times of distress. As prince and guardian, he is also a warrior for God's people.

Michael often appears in Christian art as a central figure at the last judgment. He sometimes holds a balance, weighing souls to determine who goes up and who goes down. Michael warns about the final judgment, about the seriousness with which we should take our life and our death.

When I strolled around St. Michael's Church with Otto, we talked about life and death. Otto Neudecker died on June 5, 1990. Today he is survived by one sister, Esther, the one with the two children. She will be 99 years old on Nov. 21. Esther is a bundle of energy, an ambassador for life.

These people proclaim the same message that the liturgy utters in the fall. There is dying. There is living. And, oh yes, there is living forever.

Father Paul Turner is the pastor of St. Munchin Parish in Cameron.

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