On the Brevity of Life

First Point - Death is fast approaching. Everything we see, everything we hear, proves it. In a short time we will be summoned to appear before the great Judge. We must die, indeed, but we must die a good death, if we would be saved. We try to persuade ourselves that death is still far off, as if by so doing we could keep away from us death itself. We should weep constantly over the brevity of life. A young man builds his hopes for a long life, on his youth; a man in middle life, on the vigor of his age; and an old man, on the strength of his temperament. Each one believes that he has resources against death that other men have not. How strange, but how common an illusion!

Second Point - For the generality of men life is very brief. Even though we were absolutely sure of a long life what advantage would it be to us? If we regard a long life in its relation to the present, that is to say, in regard to the affairs that occupy us, the duties incumbent upon us, the great projects that we form, the sciences we study, and the virtues that we must acquire, alas, how short it appears! But if we regard a long life in its relation to sin, ah! then it appears shorter yet. To an old man, sixty years are as a moment, and all the goods that he has possessed, all the pleasures he has enjoyed seem like a dream.

Third Point - But if we regard life in its relation to eternity it appears infinitely short. "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (1 Peter 3:8). The longest life then passes like an hour. Alas! we have only an hour to live, perhaps less, for who can promise himself a long life? Yet we busy ourselves with vast designs and with amassing great riches, with as much ardor and avidity as if we were to live forever. We think only of establishing ourselves in this life of time instead of seeking to establish ourselves in the life eternal.

Take the resolution to regard each day as if it were to be the last day of your life, and do not regard death as being very far off.

The days of man are short . . . Thou hast appointed his bounds which can not be passed. - Job 14:5

The day on which we must render our account is constantly advancing; every hour takes us nearer to it. - Euch

- text taken from Meditations for Every Day in a Month, by Father François Nepveu