Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Reflecting on Wisdom 7: 7-11
My husband Ben has been out in his Man Cave a lot lately, measuring, sawing, nailing, and sanding. He seems quite content. I’ve even caught him humming when he comes in the door. I’m trying not to take it too personally. He’s building my coffin.
Mm-hmm. Ten months ago, we resolved to buy our funeral plots, plan our funerals, and build our coffins. I’m not sure why Ben started on MY coffin first, but as my funny father-in-law asked, “This isn’t a rush job, is it?” I’m overjoyed that it isn’t.
At this moment, life seems long. It’s about as happy a life as can be experienced on this side of heaven. But we’re trying to have Wisdom. We’re trying to take the ancient writer’s words to heart, whose “splendor never yields to sleep.” We’ve both lived long enough to know that “all good things together” come to us when we pray for Wisdom, and “countless riches are at her hands.”
And so we are consciously and, I hope, prayerfully preparing for that day when nothing matters but the riches we have acquired in heaven. And then we will fall on the mercy of God, for we have come up so short of the gospel command to sell all and give to the poor, and of the Wisdom advice to love God more than “health or comeliness.”
We prayed for Wisdom, and then began to plan our funerals. We have lots of beloved family, and endlessly kind and loving friends. But we’re planning our funerals anyway, because, as Jimmy Stewart reminds us, the only thing we take to heaven is all the love we gave to others in this Wonderful Life.
How are you using Wisdom to live your life?
Kathy McGovern ©2024