Fr. Mike Fones, O.P., over at Intentional Disciples asks a heartily dangerous series of “What if?” questions. Between him, Fr. Philip Neri Powell and John da Fiesole at Disputations there are times I feel like I’m surrounded by Dominicans.
I have to admit that Fr. Mike’s question about taking your own mortality seriously hit me perhaps harder than usual today, and for the strangest of reasons. I just finished watching the Babylon 5 series the other day and in the last episode the core character, John Sheridan, realizes that he is dying and the show plays out his last few days. It is an interesting intersection that I should watch that episode at a time when we are called to deepen our reflection on the intensity of the last days of our Lord and how they lead to the incalculable brightness of the forever that is to come. As I told a co-worker today, ever since then I’ve been contemplating death (in the classic, stoic sense of contemplation, of course) and my appreciation for the limits of our time here has deepened considerably. It’s troubling, it’s frightening, it’s scary, it’s … well, it’s a lot of things. But God doesn’t put a limit on our time here out of spite – as the Pope has reminded us, in this fallen state immortality would seem a prison in time. It serves as a very good reminder that we don’t have forever to get around to doing the things that matter. There is, somewhere, that fine line between patience and procrastination; the trick I think is riding as close to that line as possible.
