Death is a dominant element for each man, a really effective power, not just because it arouses fear and anguish, contradicting men’s life, but also because as a consequence of death men get wicked and sinful. Sin is always egoism, it is always a contradiction to the communion with men and with God, and it’s exactly the presence of death to rouse the desire to rescue oneself, to live without the other men or against them. Death is not only “the wages of the sin” (Romans 6:23), but also instigation to sin… If men are inclined to sin this is because of the anguish in the face of death, in the face of that fear which makes man subject to lifelong slavery (see Hebrews 2:14-15). Because of anguish and fear men’s longing for life becomes hate, denial of the others, competition, rivalry, outrage. Everything can be distorted by anguish, love as well. Therefore death seems to be present not only in the moment of the physical death of the human body, but also before it. Death is a power which makes incursions in the wholeness of our existence, which pays attention to the fullness of our relationships and of our life.

This is exactly the death against which Jesus fought till he won. The agonía (agony) which Jesus began in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44) is a fight (agón) ended with the descent to the nether world, when he defeated Satan — and therefore death and sin— in a definitive way. And Jesus did not defeat only his death, but Death. “Through death he defeated death,” as the liturgy sings today. Now, this fight dimension is essential for the Christian: all life is a fight, it is a struggle against death which dwells inside us and against the instincts and death pulsions by which we are attracted.