Life and death are pregnant with lessons. St. Paul in the first reading today points out one major lesson we all must derive from these two principles of existence. “We brought nothing into the world,” he says and in death, “we cannot take anything out of the world.” What lesson is for us here? Contentment. Here, the wise learn to be content with the little they have in the world. Why labour to possess the thing which you cannot keep forever, after all, to the negligence of things that are essential and eternal like love of God and of neighbor, like righteousness, godliness, faith, steadfastness, etc.? A word is enough for the wise.

PRAYER: Grant Lord that I may not labour for that which passes away while relentlessly ignoring what truly matters to the spirit.