By Elizabeth G. Brown

Staying Ready: What Does It Mean?

There is one truth that applies to everyone. One truth that is undisputed and does not discriminate. It is that life will come to an end. It is true for the rich and poor, the healthy and the sick, the evil and the righteous. Nobody will escape death, no matter how stately or lowly their worldly life has been. It will not last forever. Not here.

Yes, we know that we will die. Memento mori. We don’t know when. This is why there is no, and I mean no, better (or really other) time to prepare the soul than now. Today. This moment. We can look at average lifespans or examine our family history and feel encouraged by a sense of longevity, or even feel relieved that maybe by the time we are older or sick, there will be advanced medical treatments to help us. We can comfort ourselves by saying that we have plenty of time to get our spiritual lives together. But ultimately we cannot bank on those things. In fact, doing so is spiritually dangerous.

Jesus told us that no one knows the hour that He will return. We often see people on the side of the road urging passersby to repent, accompanied by hand-painted signs that read “Jesus is coming.” Many often scoff and say “people have been saying that for centuries.” Well, perhaps when we read that no one knows the hour, we should also take it to mean that we do not know the hour of our death. But it is coming. While Jesus could very well arrive the day after you read this essay, and we should all repent, it is reasonable to assume that our deaths will come first. And we will see Him immediately upon our death.

The easiest thing in the world to do today is to be distracted, especially by our popular culture and technology, but time adds up. We would not want to look back on our life and see all the missed opportunities to be holy because we were mindlessly scrolling or gabbing about the latest celebrity scandal. Time is incredibly precious and we must be using it to become as holy as we can.

Our certain death also means that we will all face God and receive our particular judgment, which will be Heaven, purgatory, or hell. And because we do not know when we will die, we do not know when that is going to happen. So the message stands the same: we must always be repenting and turning from sin back to God. As Catholics, we must strive to remain in the state of Grace by frequenting confession, maintain a consistent prayer life, receive the Holy Eucharist as much as possible, and regularly read and meditate on Scripture. We also must remember that no sin or offense, as little or minor as it might seem, is worth offending our loving and perfectly just God who we will answer to at our death. This is eternity we are talking about, but mostly, we should strive to be sinless so as to not offend God and hurt our relationship with Him.

This should not make us feel fearful or despondent. Remembering our impending death should make us burn with a fervor to please God. It actually might even, speaking from personal experience, alleviate fear of death. Having a keen understanding that this world and its passing vanities are finite and will not matter upon our souls leaving our bodies can actually bring tremendous joy and peace, as we will not get so caught up in daily struggles or disappointments – even sufferings. Here is wisdom: live each moment as if it is your last.

If you were gazing upon an hourglass, knowing you had a short amount of time left until all the sand had descended to the bottom, what would you do? Suddenly, there is a clarity. I invite you to join me in viewing life that way, contemplating the limited and unknown amount of time left to prepare the soul for eternity. Keeping this in mind will serve as a strong motivation to cultivate holiness and will help put into perspective the stress of this worldly existence that one day will no longer matter, for we will be in eternal life. And in this closing, I am reminded of St. Teresa of Avila’s famous words:

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing frighten you.

All things are passing away.

God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.

Whoever has God lacks nothing.

God alone suffices.

All things are passing away. God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to save us. Let us always remember and honor this great love and sacrifice, this gift, by becoming as holy as we can while (joyfully!) we still have the time.

[resources: The Autobiography of Saint Theresa of Avila]