不管现世的事态有多好多美，一切终究会慢慢成为非存在。我昨晚欣赏的夕阳——如此辉煌美丽——如今已不复存在，那种美是如此短暂。那个美丽的人儿——魅力四射、青春可人、活力十足、富有创意、欢欣喜悦——最后总会老去、生病、衰弱并死亡。

 

每当想到这些，我的脑海里总会浮现出绚丽的烟花，瞬间绽放出一朵巨大的花朵，然后在眨眼之间永远消逝。世间一切都被非存在的阴影笼罩着。一切终成泡影。

 

但我们不应该因此感到沮丧，而恰恰应该把注意力转向“天上”的一切和天主的永恒。

 

Friends, today in our Gospel Jesus tells of a rich man who has been so successful that he doesn't have enough space to store his harvest. So he tears down his barns and builds bigger ones. But that very night, he dies—and all of it comes to naught. "Thus it will be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God."

 

No matter how good, how beautiful a state of affairs is here below, it is destined to pass into non-being. That sunset that I enjoyed last night—that radiantly beautiful display—is now forever gone. It lasted only a while. That beautiful person—attractive, young, full of life, creative, joyful—will eventually age, get sick, break down, and die.

 

An image that always comes to mind when I think of these things is the gorgeous firework that bursts open like a giant flower and then, in the twinkling of an eye, is gone forever. Everything is haunted by non-being. Everything, finally, is a bubble.

 

But this is not meant to depress us; it is meant to redirect our attention precisely to the things that are "above," to the eternity of God.