Life is short, death is certain, and eternity is forever

At our recent Summit in January, emcee and speaker Matt Fradd gave a compelling talk entitled The Four Last Things. During his talk, he shared about a near death experience that he had last year and how it changed his whole perspective on life. The Church has long encouraged us to consider, indeed to ponder, the sobering truth that in the end, we will all die and be judged…and thereafter spend eternity either in heaven or hell. This is a truth that the Church has taught from the beginning. Yet, this seems to be one of those topics that we rarely talk about, and often feel uncomfortable about when it does comes up.

On a personal note, this hit close to home for me a number of years ago when I came down with pneumonia that turned into sepsis, and spent a week in the ICU. I would like to think that I was living with my ultimate end in mind, but I think there may have been a level of presumption about when that end would come. Because I was in good physical health and having multiple physical exams a year, I kind of presumed that my end was not imminent … My encounter with sepsis helped me to realize that I am not assured of anything beyond my next breath.

This past October I also came face to face with the reality of eternity when I lost my younger (and only) brother, Jim, after a brief bout with cancer. For the last couple of months before he passed we had many visits, and I came away from them with a deeper appreciation for how he lived his life and was planning for eternity. The last time I saw him before he died, I was walking out of his room and he said to me, “Tom, I’ll see you in heaven.” I will always remember those words and pray that I always live my life with my ultimate end in mind.

TOM MONAGHAN is Legatus’ founder, chairman and CEO.