September 2022

Human life resembles a bridge that leads from the shores of mortality to the shores of eternity. A one-way bridge that cannot be turned back on. Today’s Gospel parable shows us two people who crossed that bridge: the beggar Lazarus and the rich man. The former lacked everything in life, even basic necessities. The second one was so obscenely rich that he was unable, or perhaps did not want to, to see the cause and relationship between his wealth and someone else’s poverty. 

Finally, we can see both of them on the other side of the bridge, on the edge of eternity. And there their fate changed radically. Lazarus “in the bosom of Abraham” experienced an eternal happiness that he did not experience on earth as he patiently waited for “the waste of the rich man’s table” and when “the dogs came and licked his sores.” The rich man suffers in hell among people who fall into two categories. The first group includes those who have made their lives meaningful to do evil. The second group, in which we find the rich man of the Gospel, includes those who have failed to do good. It seems that there can be definitely more people like these.

Each of us is today in a specific place on the bridge leading to eternity. We must remember that the quality of the eternal life depends on the quality of the earthly life. Life on earth and the decisions we make here will be saved on the other side forever.  So, what kind of life is here, such kind of the eternity will be there.