Why you shouldn't wait to die to be immortal?

... My reflection on an episode of the Word Exposed by Cardinal Luis Tagle...

Growing up in a traditional catholic family, I was always told that eternal life is the life after this one. It is the life in heaven that ensues after I die if I behaved well. Or, on the flip side, it could be living in endless episodes of the Walking Dead if I didn't do good in my time on earth. Only in that unending series, I'm casted as a zombie, or may be a zombie on fire, or half a zombie with a half a carcass, or worse...

So personally, I believed that Eternal Life is a reward-concept and I was told that I'd have to obey my parents, respect my elders, take care of my siblings (and my dog) so that when I die and St. Peter meets me (in his splendid white beard and his texas), I'd be sure to enter the Golden Gate and not be ushered down by a muscular bulldog holding a fork.

But as I've just learned, the thing is eternal life is not just life after death. It's not just the light at the end of the tunnel. It is possible even now. How?

Forgetting the concept of time is a taste of living forever. If you think about it, when time doesn't matter, that is eternity.

When you are having that moment with you family, your friends, your loved ones and you don't notice that time just flew by, you forget about time.

When you are working on a dream with all your passion and intent,  and you don't  don't care about the time it takes to get there, you are setting up your stage to forever.

To me, this makes absolute sense. It's so simple that I was really amazed by this realization.

If you find yourself, sharing the same sentiment as I used to have, it is my hope that this episode of the Word Exposed with Cardinal Luis Tagle will also bless and grow your understanding, not just to live life forever now, but to live it with more faith, joy and appreciation. We have forever at our grasps!

John 6:51-58 (NIV)

51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”


Have a Blessed Sunday everyone!

- Stephen