A Christian Ending to Our Life

“Everything, therefore, has to do with the end.”- Abba Paphnutius (The Conferences, 3.5.4)

Reaching the end requires much labor.  If the end is not well, the beginning and the middle are of little consequence.  If the athlete trains to win the race and fails to do so, he looks upon his preparation as inadequate.  If the farmer does not yield a good harvest, he suffers despite his best intentions.

Nevertheless, if we end in Christ, all is well.  Abba Paphnutius explains, "For what did it profit Judas to have willingly accepted the most sublime honor, that of the apostleship, in the same way that Peter and the other apostles were received into it, when he brought the splendid beginnings of his calling to the terrible end of covetousness and avarice and even went so far as to hand over the Lord like a cruel parricide?  Or what drawback was it to Paul that, having been suddenly blinded, he seems to have been drawn as it were unwillingly to the path of salvation, when afterward he followed the Lord with all the fervor of his soul, crowning with willing devotion what had begun in necessity and concluding with a matchless end a life that was glorious because of so many virtues?  ...  From (the end's) perspective, whoever has been consecrated by the beginnings of even the best conversion can find himself in an inferior position because of negligence, and whoever has been drawn by necessity...can become perfect through fear of God and diligence." 

Now is the time to make our ending well.  May we abide in Christ, and He in us.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1 (King James Version) 

"A Christian ending to our life, painless, unashamed, peaceful, and a good defense before the judgment seat of Christ, let us ask." - Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom