Our Life

Of all the possessions we have, the most valuable is life. Human beings may still kill each other in wars; barbarism and disregard for human life may still belong to our age; human life may appear cheap when we see bloodshed so much. Yet it is only other people’s lives that men treat cheaply.

It is always true that one’s own life remains for ever the most previous. Yet, our Lord tells us in Mathew’s gospel: “Lose your life for my sake” (Mt 10:39). This saying of Jesus must have left his listeners staggered and bewildered by its sheer incredibility. We too will never understand Jesus until we understand that he came down from heaven in order to turn our worldly ideas about life upside down and to replace our worldly dream of the good life with a vision of a cross for eternal life.