196th Meditation
“Do not be overawed when someone gets rich,
and lives in ever greater splendour;
when he dies he will take nothing with him,
his wealth will not go down with him” (Ps 49:16-17).
What will we take with us at the hour of our death, what will we be able to offer as a gift to our Father, to the One who owns everything, who is immeasurably rich and lacks nothing?
Material riches will be more of a burden and a responsibility for which we will be held accountable if we did not share with the poor. What good will all our earthly works be at the hour of judgement if they were not permeated by love?
“Then I heard a voice from heaven say to me, ‘Write down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord! Blessed indeed, the Spirit says; now they can rest for ever after their work, since their good deeds go with them'” (Rev 14:13).
So, yes, there is something that we can take with us into eternal life, something that will make our Father happy, something that will become our merit, something that can stand before the Lord and that can even become our glory. Thus, being near the hour of his death, an Apostle Paul could affirm with deep confidence and inner certainty:
“I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come for me now is the crown of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim 4:7-8).
These are the good works, the works of the Lord that we are called to do in this life:
“We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life” (Eph 2:10).
If we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will be accompanied into eternity by the works that become our merits, those treasures that we are called to treasure in heaven, “where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal” (Mt 6:20). That is what we can take with us at the hour of death!