WHAT MAKES LIFE BEAUTIFUL

Twenty – Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Am 6: 1a, 4 – 7 / Ps 146 / 1 Tm 6: 11 – 16 / Lk 16: 19 – 31

What makes your life beautiful? When can you say that you have lived a wonderful and beautiful life? For parents, to see their children grow and establish their own families make their lives beautiful. For lolos and lolas, taking good care of their apos make their lives beautiful. For the heartbroken, to be given another chance to love again makes life beautiful. How about you? What makes your life beautiful? When can you say that your life is wonderful and beautiful?

At the start of today’s Gospel, we meet a rich man whose life was beautiful because he “dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dines sumptuously each day.” Anyone of us can easily say that this rich man is living a beautiful life because he has much. However, towards the end of the Gospel, there was a turn of events. The beautiful life of the rich man ended in tragedy. He was suffered torment because of the flames while another man, Lazarus, was enjoying himself at the side of Abraham.

My dear friends, our Gospel today reminds us of an important truth in life. In order to make our lives truly beautiful, we must spend less for ourselves, and more for others. For our lives to be truly beautiful, instead of dressing up ourselves with purple garments and fine linens, we try to dress those undressed. I do not just mean to say those naked people walking on the streets. Rather, let us clothe those whose human dignity has been undressed because of greed and selfishness of others. Instead of dining sumptuously each day for our own fulfillment, let us also learn to dine with others. Dining with others do not only mean eating sumptuous food every day. Every time we eat, we always share stories only to those people who are close to us. We do not share table with our enemies. Thus, dining with others also means learning to open our lives to others.

The recently canonized St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, “a life not lived for others is not a life.” The American spiritual writer, Thomas Merton also said, “we do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”

My dear friends, our challenge today is to aim for a beautiful life by living our lives for others, by finding life’s meaning in other peoples’ lives. The prophet Amos in our First Reading reminds us that we must not be complacent with our lives. And St. Paul in our Second Reading gives us the means on how to live our lives for others by pursuing “righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.”

After spending some time in the Philippines, this retired teacher went to the United States for good. She decided to work there in the early 70’s. However, she opted to teach in a school that was not in the city center. And for more than 40 years, she taught little children who have difficulty in reading and comprehension. And so, this retired teacher shared with me a portion of her farewell speech during her retirement party. She said, “I am now happy with my life. I am happy not because I earned dollars for the past forty years. I am happy not because of my bank accounts. I am happy not because I was able to buy a good house for my family. I am happy because for the past forty years I have become part of the lives of the many children whom I have taught. “

“I am happy because I have become part of the lives of many.”

That school teacher, indeed, had a beautiful life. Lazarus, in the end of our Gospel, experienced a beautiful life. How about us? How about you? What makes your life beautiful? When can you say to yourself that you have lived a wonderful and beautiful life?

“A life not lived for others is not a life.” “We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”

Life is beautiful if it is spent with others friends or enemies alike. Amen.