Eventide & Altar

Watching guests jockey for the best seats at a dinner, Jesus tells them to take the lowest place instead, so that the host might invite them higher rather than sending them lower in front of everyone. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, he says, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Paul's first reading, near the end of a long letter written from prison, says something that only really makes sense from someone close to the end of a long, full life: for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. He is genuinely unsure which he would choose if it were up to him, torn between the good of staying and the good of finally going home. That is not despair. It is the settled peace of someone who has already taken the lowest seat willingly and found it was never really a loss.

Tonight closes out a whole month spent examining a long life honestly: what was entrusted and how it was used, what was built and what it was actually for, what stayed unsettled too long, what quietly grew thin, what continued past your own hands. None of that examining was meant to end in anxiety about the account. It was meant to end here, at Paul's own settled place, where living is still Christ and dying is still gain, and neither one is actually the losing option.

Whatever seat you have taken in this life, willingly low or otherwise, the host of this particular feast has already promised to move you higher than you sat yourself.

The Joyful Mysteries tonight, since it is Saturday, and the final night of this month's Rosary. Offer the fifth mystery, the Finding in the Temple, for everyone this month has been offered for, and for your own soul, at whatever seat you find yourself tonight.

• For the grace to take the lowest seat freely, trusting the host to do the rest, we pray to the Lord.
• For the grace to say with Paul that to live is Christ and to die is gain, we pray to the Lord.
• For all who have died this year, that they have been welcomed to the seat prepared for them, we pray to the Lord.

Look back over this whole month of examen. Choose one thing it surfaced that still needs attention, and bring it to prayer one more time tonight before October ends.