morbid

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time


If you will be given the choice on how you are to die, what would it be?
Plane crash, sinking boat, vehicular accident?
Long and lingering illness, fast food poisoning death?
I also asked myself the same question and prayed over it.
I said, Lord, if possible, let mine be a swift and painless death.
Still, if you wish that my death will be long and painful, let it be dignified and that I be beside my loved ones.
And yes, Lord,you may also take your pick, surprise me.
One time I was having lunch with a priest and a parishioner.
I asked the priest if he already made his last will and testament.
As soon as a priest is ordained in the diocese, he is requested to make one.
That’s how we are prepared for ministry in a way, by preparing us for the end.
I told my priest friend that I have already finished my last will.
And included there is my explicit instruction that all my body organs be donated - eyes, heart, lungs, kidney.
I would not be needing them anyway.
We were enjoying the conversation over pasta and pizza when the parishioner interrupted us,
Fathers, stop it! It’s morbid!
It’s true.
It’s morbid.
Still, I will ask again, if you will be given the choice on how you are to die, what would it be?
Why am I asking?
Because, first of all, it is the reality.
We are all going to die.
Believe it or not.
Like it or not.
As one columnist bitingly remarked, no one gets out of life alive!
And second of all, it is in confronting the reality of death that we begin to seriously confront the reality of life.
It is in acknowledging the fact of dying that we affirm the importance of the fact of living.
The comedian, George Burns once said - many say, life begins at 40, I say, life begins every time you wake up.
The Gospel says, life begins when you receive the body and blood of Christ.
That is in eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ that we realize what is most important in life - God, relationships.
Loving God who took on our body and blood and shed it for our salvation.
Loving our neighbor, our flesh and blood, as ourselves.
We are to make the best that life has to offer so that we will receive the best life that God has to offer.
We make the most of life, and we must remember what is our true goal in life, not money, not positions.
We may be considered the luckiest if we earned billions and be counted as one of the richest people on earth.
We may be considered blest if we get the highest position in the land.
But that is not our mission.
They are only instruments for us to discover our mission - which is to love God and neighbor.
So as we celebrate the mass, let us remember
True life does not begin at 40
New life does not begin every time we wake up
Fullness of life begins when we receive the body and blood of Christ.
And as we say our amen and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour,
May we invite others, the unchurched, our friends and families to do likewise,
That all of us may have life everlasting.