The end of today's Gospel reading is a warning about
something that we could all be aware of all the time, - that death is at
our elbow, that much, very much, of what we do will perish with us as
unnecessary, mortal.
Does this mean that Christ's warning about the closeness
of death should frighten us and deprive us of creative strength? No, on
the contrary; the Fathers used to say, «keep a constant memory of death»
not in the sense that we should be afraid of death and live under its
constant shadow, but rather because nothing but the awareness of the
fact that life is short, that it may end at any moment, can give to
every moment its final meaning, and to the whole of life the feeling
that we must hurry to do good, that we must hurry to live in such a way
that at whatever moment death overtakes us, it will be a moment of
triumphant life. We would live with such depth, so intensely, if only
this awareness were with us constantly. If we were to know that the
words that I am now speaking to you were the last, how differently would
I say them, and how differently would you listen!
If we were to feel that the person we were talking to
might be dead within a few minutes, how careful we should be that our
words and actions in relation to him should be the culmination of all
the love and care of which we are capable, that they should be the
triumph of everything that is best and highest in our relationship.
The reason that we live so badly, utter so many empty
words, rotten words, dead words, commit so many actions that afterwards
burn in our soul like wounds, is that we live as though this life was
merely a rough draft of the life we will one day be living, when we have
had time to shape the draft into the final story. But that is not how
things work; death comes and the draft remains rough, his life has not
been lived, just blotted, and there remains regret for the person who
could have been great, but turned out shallow and insignificant.
That is what today's Gospel is about, not that we should
be afraid of death, but that, knowing that it can come at any moment,
every moment must be perfect, every word must be a word of life, filled
with the Spirit, fit to enter eternity. And every action of ours in
relation to each one of us should be such as to give life and express
the fullness and depth and strength of the love and reverence which we
should feel for each other and for all. Let us consider this, and then
if we can act upon it, every word and every action will acquire the
dimension of eternity and shine with its light. Amen.
