"...But if you wish to enter into life, keep all the commandments of God." — Mat. 19:17
Jesus in His message through the Gospel of Matthew reminds us today to obey all God's commandments so that we may enter into a true life. Dear friends, today is the 365th day of 2022. For so long we have lived our mortal life in this world, it doesn't seem real sometimes as time flies so fast, seems just floats and disappears. In each moment of the end of a year, we are always reminded that the purpose of our pilgrimage of life is getting closer. We are reminded to prepare ourselves to welcome the real life with Him, the eternal life.
Many years ago we were born and present in the world in the form of babies and were entrusted to our respective parents. In fact since then God has given us responsible freedom in living our each own life. He has determined from the beginning, how long we will spend our life in this world, before returning to Him and in what way we will return to Him and so on. Our task is to accept fully that we are His own, we are obliged to give thanks from time to time and enjoy the life that is given with full responsibility and awareness that the life we are living really belongs to God. Obstacles, temptations, challenges during life's journey should be seen as God's way of expressing a longing for His people, maybe when we were happy, we didn't remember Him, so sometimes we are greeted in the opposite atmosphere, greeted with suffering, lost and pain.
When hard times come, do we remember God? Or do we even curse why there must be suffering? Why must we experience misfortune? And various complaints from our mouths, from our minds and from our hearts every time we face life's problems. God is truly good. We are given many opportunities to face various kinds of shortcomings. God's commandments are not as heavy as we think because indeed His commands are for our good such as the commandments to love one another, not to kill, to respect our parents and so on. Aren't those commandments for the good of our society? Sometimes pride in our achievements makes it easy for us to forget The Source of inspiration and strength. In arrogance there’s some thought in our mind that all of those achievements happen because of the support of our loved ones, so at once we celebrate those moments in a party. We forgot that first of all we have to thank God because everything we have, including our loved ones, achievements, times, opportunities and so on, are not ours.
At the end of this year, let's try to look back at the journey of life that we have been through for 365 days throughout the year of 2022. Is the journey of life that has passed filled with gratitude or is it filled with complaints, heartaches, disappointments and despair? Have we ever thought that God was unfair?
Life is a gift because we live it only once and it will never be repeated. We will never be born again in the same world and fix all the mistakes and sins that have been made in our previous lives. While there are still opportunities in the coming years, let's be grateful for the gift of life, be grateful for everything that has happened and will happen to us. Thus, when the pilgrimage of life in this world ends, we are ready to live the real life, which is the eternal life with Him and with all those who have gone before us. Our destiny is Heaven.
Reflection on Matthew 19:16-30 by Sr. Yanti Purnawati SFSC
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