Living? What For?

We all know that living in the 21st century, in such a turbulent world and in a country like Venezuela, is not at all easy!, and much less so for those of us who call ourselves Christians and must behave as such, following the narrow path Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us. He himself told us: “Whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it” (cf. Mk 8:34-35).

For a Christian, life cannot be easy or comfortable, because it is a constant struggle against the tendencies we all carry within us (pride, anger, vanity, gluttony, lust, envy, sloth and so on), and we also know that we must live to serve and not to be served, as Christ himself taught us.

When a Christian manages to live in a Christian way (forgive the redundancy), he begins to enjoy, already in this life, the immense happiness of loving God above all things and his neighbor as himself. He also begins to dream of reaching Heaven. That is why so many saints, starting with Saint Paul, longed to be with Jesus Christ even though they knew their brothers and sisters still needed them here below. Saint Teresa of Jesus kept repeating, “I die because I do not die” (for her it would have been far more comfortable to be in Heaven than to be carrying out her mission here below). The first Christians who died as martyrs in the Roman Colosseum, which we could see on TV during Holy Week, went singing praises to the God who would soon be with them as they walked out to be devoured by lions.

When a Christian has lived as a true Christian, denying his whims, making life happy for others, sowing good things around him and bringing Christ’s Truth and Peace to everyone, he understands perfectly that life without God makes no sense, and death even less. Saint Paul wrote to the Romans that none of us lives for himself and none of us dies for himself; if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that in life and in death we belong to the Lord (cf. Rom 14:7-8).

That is why all the saints dreamed of that wonderful moment of meeting Christ face to face and being in Heaven enjoying eternal happiness. Just think of what Don Bosco, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint John of God, the chancellor Thomas More, the married couple Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi and thousands upon thousands of other saints (many not canonized but in Heaven) had to go through. Because they lived to do God’s Will and not their own. They lived following the Way God taught them, not one they invented to suit themselves. They carried Christ’s Cross and thorns with heroic patience. But above all they always lived sowing Peace and Joy for everyone, because that is the chief mark of a Christian.

It is no use saying we are Christians, or calling on God out of convenience or only when we need his help, if we are not on the path Christ taught us. He himself said that not everyone who says to him “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of his Father in heaven (cf. Mt 7:21). So as long as we are alive, we must live facing God. And when death draws near, we should abandon ourselves into his hands, repent of whatever wrong we have done, and make use of the wonderful sacrament of confession that Jesus Christ instituted in his Church when he told the apostles that the sins they forgave would be forgiven and the sins they retained would be retained (cf. Jn 20:22-23).

That is why God sent his Son into the world: to teach us the Way, the Truth and the Life. He sent his Son to die on a Cross so that he could save us from our sins. That is what Christ came to earth for! He did not come to bring an ideology, or a political or economic system… He came to save us from the death of sin! He came to turn Death into Eternal Life! That is the Christian’s great triumph!

So, living? Yes. But what for? To do Good, to do God’s Will and to follow the Way He taught us. Then we will be able to live fully happy in this “valley of tears,” live the commandment of charity to the full, and enter his wonderful kingdom when Christ calls us. That heavenly kingdom which cannot be compared with even the greatest riches, beauty or power one could dream of in this world.