This very night your life will be required of you. I hope that when you hear of tragic deaths your first thought is: were they ready? Were they prepared for what the letter to the Hebrews tells us is a terrifying thing, to fall into the hands of the living God?

We all must do that one day. It is the only sure thing in life. The only criterion by which to determine if we have lived well or badly is whether or not we have prepared ourselves for that encounter. The rest of our existence - which lasts an eternity - depends entirely on that one moment when we are judged soon after death. Given these facts you would think that people would be a little more careful about the way they live. You would think they would have their eyes constantly fixed on eternity, determining their actions by this one criterion: is this action pleasing to the Almighty or not?

Most men live their lives as if they were going to live forever. As if there were no just judge, no Purgatory, and even no Hell. They live as if the only important thing were amassing wealth, or indulging appetites, or - and this is even more insidious - they live as if the only important thing were their hobby, or reading the newspaper, or working in the garden. They do many good or innocuous things, but if completely absorbed by them, without thought for the next life, these can be dangers. It's not rare in fact to find even quite religious people who do not think sufficiently of the great test that awaits them. St. Paul must have known some in Corinth to whom he said: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. (I Cor 15.19)

It seems to me that perhaps the greatest error of our day - greatest both in breadth of acceptance and in the havoc it wreaks - is the error of presumption. Most people, including many religious people, think that going to Hell is hard and getting to Heaven is easy. This is for many even a corollary of God is love. Now it should give people who think this way pause to consider that Christ said the exact opposite: Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Mt 7: 13-14)

This doesn't mean that God is not a loving God. On the contrary, He has not only opened the way to salvation at the cost of the passion of his divine Son, but He has set up an institution that will communicate to us the power to become sons of God and will never falter in reminding us of all we must know and do to stay on the path of life. Now, most people figure, I'll have time to put my house in order. True enough, I've heard of late-in-life and even death-bed conversions - they are beautiful things, but they are also rare. The ordinary course is that people drift away from the Church, the life of grace, and they just keep drifting. I never cease to be amazed - and horrified - that people in extremely precarious health can turn a deaf ear to a priest or to those who tell them to see one. St. Paul strived to be all things to all men to save at least some. This may seem like a pessimistic remark but no one has ever had a firmer grasp on the universal and excessively indulgent plan of salvation wrought by God in Christ Jesus. Heaven is merited only by receiving, appreciating, and preserving the gift of grace. The Second Vatican Council states for instance: "All children of the Church should nevertheless remember that their exalted condition results, not from their own merits, but from the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in thought, word, and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved, but they shall be the more severely judged".

To live as one prepared to meet God is not to live in fear. On the contrary, it enables us to live freed from the fear of death and judgment. Then, we will have true peace in this life and eternal peace in the next.