Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

"Life always ends before it's finished" (Walter Ong SJ). I'm guessing the only people who would not say that are some elderly who are hanging on in pain, isolation and loneliness. When we're still caught up in our work, our families, friends and a variety of interests, there never seems to be time enough. We want to finish the house, the summer cottage, see the grandchildren, get to Italy, continue to enjoy Bill or Mary’s love. We look inside and there, too, are faced with unfinished matters: the temper still flares up; we're still too quick to judge; a deepened prayer life has been put off yet another year.

How do we interpret the fact that a glorious smile or an attractive person can still make us melt? It scares a seventy-year-old to think that he or she is still capable of palpitations. Should we be over that or is it a sign of vitality and sanity? Our intentions still seem an odd combination of self-seeking and self-forgetfulness. Where's this integrity or wholeness they talk about? The incompleteness of everything might be frustrating. On the other hand, it might be a strong pointer to the fact that this life is never complete, an encouragement to hope for more beyond it. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope."

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

Watch Daily Mass online at: SaintJohnsAbbey.org/live

Send your prayer requests to the monks