Readings: Zech. 2:1-5.10-11; Ps. 31; Luke 9:43-45
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.
REFLECTING ON THE REALITY OF DEATH
I once visited a cemetery and I saw on a wall names and dates of so many men and women who had passed on from the community. Then I asked myself in my deep reflection, where are all these people whose names are listed on this wall? Where did they like us before? Are we going to be like them later? Where will all of us in this beautiful community be in the next hundred years? The answers to these questions are difficult to understand because we don’t think about the inevitable event of death
This is not different from what Jesus is reminding his disciples in our Gospel passage today, where after his great miracles, when everyone was full of admiration for all he did, Jesus said to his disciples, For your part, you must have these words constantly in your mind: that the Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men and they will put him to death. But they did not understand him. For we heard in our first reading today that: there was a man with a measuring line in his hand. And when he was asked, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘To measure Jerusalem, to find out her breadth and her length.
Dear friends, today we are reminded about the true reality of life, that we all are going to die one day and the dust of our flesh and bones will return to the earth while our Spirit retire to God, knowing that we will be held accountable for how we lived this life. We are going to give back to God the gift of life he has given us, because our life is a temporal assignment.
So, why not start living this life according to the present reality since we do not know how and when we are going to account for it? Why not accept joyfully who we are now as we work hard to be better tomorrow? Remember, everything is in the hands of God; we brought nothing into this world, and we are taking nothing out of it.
LET US PRAY: Lord God, our life is meaningless without you. Grant that we may realise the shortness of this life and so prepare to give an account of how we have lived our lives. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen God bless you
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