text: I want to say more clearly, that I like very much many of your ideas about death and dying, and also intimacy with Jesus.
  
  But I don't recognize at all what you say about "our" Confirmation and Baptism, "compelling us" to help others in the very meddlesome way you seem to have in mind. Nor do I know of any Catholics who have that notion.
  
  Nor do I think you characterize at all accurately or fairly the kind of death chosen by John Shields and others. There is no despair, of a spiritual or theological sort; there is no abandonment. And it is hard to see how the devil could abide the presence of so loving, thoughtful and intelligent a company.