Life is to be lived to the full and……Forever

This week a young man of twenty three, called Jonathan Herlihy, from Cork,  ought to have graduated with his class mates.  Instead,  we saw in our papers a photo of his grieving mother, in deep reflection,  beside his coffin. Jonathan,  with another young man, Peter O’Keeffe, gave his life in saving the lives of others.  At the funeral Jonathan’s family asked for prayers for the young couple who were rescued so that they would get their lives back together again. 

These young men died tragically and heroically leaving anguished hearts behind them.  Yet, the lives of Jonathan Herlihy and Peter O’Keeffe will live on forever in the folk memories of their communities.

It was,  as if deep within them,  they each heard a gospel message: “I was in difficulty and you came to My rescue.” You gave Me life in losing your own.

By contrast we read this week of other lives which were held in less esteem:

• The lives of two children endangered in a car being put on fire
• The lives of lovely young people who did not know how to celebrate receiving the results of their first public exam.
• The lives of those lost in the horrific violence of the Twin Towers and the subsequent loss of life in the Iraq war.

It is unlikely that you or I will have to lose our lives in a heroic manner this week.  Yet, how great it would be if I could be life-giving to another.

God is the stage manager of life and perhaps the prompter as well.  Allow God to prompt you. Maybe God is prompting you just to listen in a new way to a story you have heard so many times before. Or,  perhaps God is asking you to look at another’s life in a new light.  It might cost you and you might have to lose something of yourself. But then Jesus says: “The one who loses life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it”.  Then it will be a life lived to the full and …..forever!

Fr. Michael McCullagh, C.M

17th September, 2006