Fear of life leads to excessive fear of death... In some way one must pay with life and consent daily to die, to give oneself up to the risks and dangers of the world, to allow oneself to be engulfed and used up. Otherwise, one ends up as though dead, in trying to avoid life and death.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
Jesus, Luke 9:24
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Paul, Galatians 2:19b-20
Perhaps if we could only forget, for a while, that there are worse things than death, we could realise that our life is far more than this present breathing, this little tent of frail flesh and bone... We are safe in Christ's wounded hand, and all we are is his. Did he not say, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." (John 10 27-28)?
2 comments:
A Jesuit friend of ours likes to say that the question is not whether there is life after death but life before death :-)
Very true, Claire!
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