Do you treat everything, everyone and every moment with conscious preciousness? - Daily Reflections November 25,2015

THE TRAP OF IMAGINED IMMORTALITY

 

A son went to his father and asked, “When is the best time to pray?” The father responded,” The best time to pray is when the end of your life is near.” The son protested, “But no one knows when the end is going to be!” The father continued, “That’s my point. Since no one knows the end, the best time to pray is every day.”

       King Belshazzar succeeded his father, Nebuchadnezzar. We find him today drunk, figuratively and literally, in the perks of the kingship. Bored with the usual manner of partying with his cohorts, he ordered, in his drunken frenzy, that the sacred vessels that his father had taken from the temple of Jerusalem be brought out, so that he and his guests could drink wine in them. Suddenly, a writing on the wall appeared, tracing the words MENE, TEKEL and PERES.

       Terrified, the king called for Daniel to reveal the meaning of the words. The interpretation was chilling. MENE — God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it; TEKEL — you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; PERES — your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

       Since biblical times, irresponsibility has been the child of imagined immortality. King Belshazzar thought his kingdom would be forever. And so, instead of dispensing his kingly power to empower his subjects and bring them to knowledge of the true God, he used the throne as a personal playground.

       When we forget that there is an end to everything, we become lazy and prone to loose living. Conversely, when we remember that everything under the sun is given to us on borrowed time, we become more attentive, caring and responsible.

       What is to deliver us from this trap of imagined immortality? The wisdom of St. Bonaventure is an invaluable guide. He  said, “To lead a good life, man should imagine himself always at the hour of death.” Fr. Joel Jason

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: Do you treat everything, everyone and every moment with conscious preciousness?

 

Let me treasure every moment, O Lord, for I shall pass this world only once. Amen.