Entries

Day 11

A reading from the Book of Ecclesiasticus (8:6-9; 11:14, 17-19)

Do not disdain one who is old,
for some of us are also growing old.
Do not rejoice over anyone’s death;
remember that we must all die.

Do not slight the discourse of the sages,
   but busy yourself with their maxims;
because from them you will learn discipline
   and how to serve princes.
Do not ignore the discourse of the aged,
   for they themselves learned from their parents;^*
from them you learn how to understand
   and to give an answer when the need arises.

Good things and bad, life and death,

poverty and wealth, come from the Lord.^*

The Lord’s gift remains with the devout,

and his favour brings lasting success.

One becomes rich through diligence and self-denial,

and the reward allotted to him is this:

when he says, ‘I have found rest,

and now I shall feast on my goods!’

he does not know how long it will be

until he leaves them to others and dies.

From the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) by the Second Vatican Council

Though made of body and soul, man is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus they reach their crown through him and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator. For this reason man is not allowed to despise his bodily life; rather, he is obliged to regard his body as good and honourable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart.

Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, who probes the heart awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognises in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter.

It is in the face of death that the riddle of human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavours of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety, for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast.

Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when he rose to life, for by his death he freed man from death.

Musical Selection

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Prayer

Lord God,

in whom all find refuge,

we appeal to your boundless mercy:

grant to the souls of your servants

a kindly welcome,

cleansing of sin,

release from the chains of death,

and entry into everlasting life.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever. Amen.

Archives