I RECENTLY celebrated my birthday. I am definitely in my sunset years — in fact, I can say that each year comes as a “bonus.” “Dies annorum nostrorum in ipsis septuaginta anni si multum autem octoginta anni... Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong” — thus the Psalmist laments. But there has to be an end. Life as we know it that would last indefinitely would be an apt description of hell. That is not the Christian promise of resurrection. The Romans packed a lot of insight into terms they used and the Latin “finis” is one such word. It means “end, but, as in English, end also means goal, purpose.
The end of life is completeness, wholeness — and for as long as we trek the path of the pilgrim, there is no completeness. That will come when we reach the journey’s end.
One faces the dawning day, full of excitement over what is to come. One faces the sunset, full of gratitude for what has been, longing for the promised repose after the labors of day. In the Spanish edition of the Liturgy of the Hours, one has the following Concluding Prayer at Compline of Thursday, the very last office of the day: “Señor, Dios nestro, concedenos un descanso tranquilo que restaure nuestras fuerzas, desgastadas ahora por el trabajo del dia...” And that is exactly what one feels towards the end of life’s day: worn out by the labors of day. But one does not recite this prayer in regret, rather, with a heart full of gratitude for all that has been granted us to accomplish. So it is that it is salutary to be charmed by the sunset, to be entranced by the palette that the sky becomes with hues painted by the setting sun, the dying day.
Existence, Heidegger tells us, is always being ahead of oneself — projecting possibility, realizing what is not yet and bringing it about such that one never coincides with oneself. That is not philosophical abstruseness. It is a fundamental experience of life. It is exciting, challenging, promising — but it is also tiring, and when one has run the entire course, one looks forward to repose. One accepts the rest that comes as reward.
As one’s time draws to a close, one remembers with gratitude all the love of which one has been an often unworthy but nonetheless willing beneficiary. To be regretful that one no longer has the charms of youth, the vigor of younger years, the zest of young life is to miss out on the beautiful experience of considering how much wiser one has become from the chastening experiences of life, the realization of the patience that has blossomed from trials, often severe, that have come one’s way, the contentment that comes to those who have been made wise in the conviction that wealth is not what one has but what one has become. The elderly tend to speak of the past more, because the prospects that remain outstanding are fewer, while the memories are many and rich. I remember a beautiful scene from the older version of “An Affair to Remember.” The enamored couple visited an elderly lady living on a villa overlooking the sea. And Deborah Kerr says: “I could stay here forever,” but the wise old lady tells her: “Go, make your memories first, and then come back here to enjoy them.” One’s sunset years are the incomparable opportunity to reminisce, and to rejoice in memories.
Of course there is fear, and as the conciliar document on The Church in the Modern World so acutely puts it: There is nothing that fills us with more dread than the threat of annihilation. And here, in the face of ultimate helplessness — the utter inability to add one fraction of time when one’s time is up — hope blossoms forth, not the cheap version that has one imagining the Paradise that awaits a soul, but that faith-filled, faith-inspired belief in the light amid the coming gloom. It is the holy wisdom that power is ultimately not one’s to wield — especially not the power over one’s life — but something that comes from what “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor anything that has ever occurred to us.” It is the hope that does not prove immortality but appeals for it — in that remarkable certainty that hope will not be betrayed.
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
