When you are in anguish and overcome by the sense that, in the world, there is nothing but your misfortune, how relieved you would feel if you reflected a little on the relativity of all things!
You open the newspaper one morning and you are overwhelmed by the things that have happened in your own city or in other places in the world. You open it on the following day and again you feel shaken by the news about assassinations and abductions.
The news of the previous day no longer exists or affects you.
On the third day, you are profoundly shocked by the new horrors that the press tells you. The news of the two previous days has already vanished. No one remembers them. And so it is day after day. Everything flows on like the waters of a river; they run by and never return.
To sum up, nothing remains here, because everything passes on. We make the events of each day and each moment absolute, but we observe time and time again that everything is so relative… What sense is there in suffering today for something that will not be there tomorrow? People suffer because of their shortsightedness or, better yet, because they are “asleep”.
Apply this reflection to your family life and you will see that last month’s terrible emergency is now history, and by the same token, what terrifies you today, in as little as a month will be only a memory.
Sitting in front of the television, you are moved or depressed by political ups and downs, athletic tournaments, the marks at the Olympics, the new national champions. Your spirits rise and fall at each moment as if your eternal destiny was at stake. But there is no such thing. Everything is as ephemeral as the morning dew.
Nothing remains, everything passes on. Why be in anguish?
Everything is as fleeting as the clouds. Be aware of the relative aspect of life! This is the secret: reducing everything to its objective dimension.
In history, everything appears, shines for a brief moment and disappears; everything is born and dies, comes and goes.
Man must become aware of the relativity of misfortune, economize on his energy in order to take flight and rise above adversity. He must settle in the immutable depths of is being, in the presence of the self, serene and in control. From this position, he must balance the painful weight of existence, the bonds of time and space, the threat of death, the ordeals that come from far and near.
The world was given to man for him to transform into a happy home. The weapons for this task are passion and peace. In order that man may have the passion and peace necessary to raise up a world of love, his inner life must be free from tensions and bathed in serenity.
Every time you find yourself so overwhelmed by an event that it turns to anguish, stop and activate this invaluable spring: perceive the relativity of all things.
Based on Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga’s book: From suffering to peace
