The good life

People have often spoken of “the good life” when speaking of lives of luxury and ease.

Those lives of luxury and ease were in truth generally empty and rarely were they truly happy.

Moreover, those lives of luxury and ease seem far, far away in this current time of economic and financial troubles.

Today’s first reading (Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21) refers to good in life that is real, that brings real happiness.

First, there is the good that you do:

Do not neglect to do good
and to share what you have;
God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind.

Second, there is the good that you receive: which is given not for our selfish pleasures, but for the good of others (as mentioned above) and for God’s glory.

Therein lies the good that is real, that is true, that is totally fulfilling, and that is everlasting: the good that makes us truly happy now and forever.

May the God of peace,
who brought up from the dead
the great shepherd of the sheep
by the Blood of the eternal covenant,
furnish you with all that is good,
that you may do his will.

May he carry out in you
what is pleasing to him
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen.