At The End of Our Lives

At The End of Our Lives    

At the end of life, we will be judged                                                                                                       on how much we have loved.

St. John of The Cross

Here is Wayne Teasdale’s more detailed commentary:

“God is love itself.  Therefore, it is only fitting that our life here and afterward are also about love– That we are here to perfect this Divine Love in everything we do or say, think or feel. This quality of love is not sentimental nor discriminatory, nor is it limited in its range; It is freely given, responding to the needs that present themselves in the sufferings of others.

 We are always faced with the same choice: ourselves or others. It is easy to ignore the needs of others. We can walk past homeless people in our cities, pretending that we do not see them. We can argue over petty disagreements with our spouses or curse the drivers who slighted us. It is always easier to dismiss our responsibility towards others by focussing on our own matters. But we do not fool God, ourselves or others. When the call comes, will you be ready to look at your life and examine how you responded to love?”    

How have I lived? How have I loved? These two inescapable and essential questions, at times, have haunted me with feelings of gnawing inadequacy. At other times, I felt that I have “touched the hem of Jesus’s garment” (KJV) and responded as humbly, as wholeheartedly as I could… 

I feel it’s safe to say that none of us have loved enough… In our narcissistic age, that prizes individualism, and at its worst self-aggrandizement, each day’s news headlines indicts us and will convict us in convincing ways… Only our unselfishness and compassion can truly “save” us, or bring us to any measure of peace, serenity, or wholeness. 

Our sense of community, connection, and conscience serves to inspire and correct us…Yet, it is easy to feel estranged, cut off, or only superficially attached; that the community we have chosen does not sufficiently share and support a common vision of mutual support. 

We acknowledge that we will need an enlivened conscience that declares that the walls of any building; be it a home or a church, a Congress, or a clinic are only useful boundaries, IF they are built with openhearted doors; only IF the windows of engagement welcome others and actively address the needs of our humanity that publicly declares how much we care about our world, and all life that share it with us…