Legend has it that when an Egyptian Pharaoh was on his deathbed, he summoned to his side three wise advisors and inquired, “What will happen when I die?” The most senior and trusted sage then replied hesitantly, “Your Majesty, Lord of all Nations, when you stand before the god of your people, he will ask you two questions. Your answers to these questions will determine what happens for eternity.” Hearing this, the puzzled Pharaoh asked apprehensively, “What will these questions be?” Summoning courage and diplomacy, the sage replied, “Firstly, God will ask you, ‘Were you happy in life?’ Since Your Majesty rules a prosperous land, an affirmative reply is expected. The subsequent question will be the crucial one. God will ask, ‘As I blessed you with so much happiness, how many people did you make happy?’” The Pharaoh closed his eyes and an air of palpable despair wrinkled his forehead as he gasped for his last distressed breaths.
Stories like this stand testament to an enduring anxiety about the meaning of life as we struggle to find answers. Yet for king and pauper there is but one way into this world and one way out. We are all like the Pharaoh, when alienation from God leads to ignorance of his precepts and to dependence on intelligence, technology and medicine. The arrow of time ensures that each moment passes and never returns, so the wise do well to ponder the consequences of their actions. It’s true that nobody can avoid worries, fears and sleepless nights, until what is of earth returns to earth and what is from above returns above. Besides, increased anxiety is caused by the many counterfeit gods in this throwaway culture, who might even outnumber the idols of past millennia. They deceive people by confusing man’s limited capacity to transcend himself, with his anxiety to control existence until the end – in a hopeless attempt at self-deification.
Back in 1989, a wise Argentinean, who gave me my first job in town, told me, “It doesn’t matter if you are the Pope or a prisoner, everyone carries through life an invisible bucket of worries. The only difference is what you decide to carry in it – as everyone’s bucket is full!” During Sunday’s communion rite, my attention is frequently caught by the second part of the petition: "In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety, as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior." In point of fact, though sin is a genuine concern, the lack of serenity in modern life is the greatest inhibitor of human accomplishment. If we seek to change the heart, to strengthen willpower and to conform to holy habits, firstly we must destroy the fretful windmills against which we tilt our worries. Let us pray for serenity and avoid the delusion that we can achieve happiness on our own, without trusting in God alone.
From the book of Judith comes deep wisdom, “Listen to me! What you have said to the people today is not right. You have sworn and pronounced this oath between God and you, promising to surrender the town to our enemies unless the Lord helps us within five days. Who are you to put God to the test today, and to set yourselves up in the place of God in human affairs? You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind. How do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? No! Do not anger the Lord our God! For if he does not choose to help us within these five days, he has power to protect us within any time he pleases. Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God – for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading. Therefore, while we wait for his deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice – if and when it pleases him.”
