Fr Jim Cogley
Just a few minutes in a doctor’s consultancy room can completely turn our world upside down with even just three words ‘You have cancer.’ Irrespective of how far advanced the condition is, or the prognosis, the ‘C’ word can change everything. When confronted with our mortality, the values upon which we have built our lives immediately come into question. If materialism and getting more and more of this world’s goods was my primary reason for living, the prospect of having to leave it all behind becomes quite shocking and we may be inclined to say ‘I worked so hard, and achieved so much, but for what? I may even have a large property portfolio and lots of money and now I am confronted with the realization of what money can’t buy. When a hard working friend of mine died far too young I was given his diary. Inside were lots of his thoughts about life and death, but the last entry seemed to express his deepest truth. ‘We squander health in search of wealth, we scratch and toil and save. Then we squander wealth in search of health and only find a grave.’
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