Goodbye

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings present us with two imminent departures, partings of beloved friends, who will never again see each other on this earth.

One departure is that of Jesus, who is about to be crucified; the other, Jesus’ disciple Paul, leader of the Christian community, who leaves for other shores and predicts his inability ever to return. In both departures, there is deep melancholy on the part of those being left. Jesus’ disciples are filled with “sheer sorrow” (cf. Lk. 22:45), and Paul’s hearers were “deeply distressed.”

Jesus and Paul are very similarly aware that the target of their mission is not earthly togetherness, but eternal togetherness: The salvation and sanctification of their friends, whom they love.

Often, we mistake relative earthly goods as having absolute value, which only eternal goods have. Anything that is subject to passing, to decay, to loss, has no absolute value, and so it is with our earthly lives and earthly goods, as exalted as these may be.

The only way to achieve as noble and complete a detachment from earthly goods as that which Jesus and Paul display is to live constantly, habitually with the goods of this world as though we were already in the process of losing them–which we are. It is an uncomfortable, even in a sense unsettling way to live, but it also brings great peace and the deepest of joys.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to prevent that your heart become fixated on passing earthly goods, as wonderful and noble as these can be, but to realize almost by second nature that they are in the process of passing, and ultimately only have lasting value to the degree that they are leveraged to help you and others attain to eternal goods.