“I have come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly” (Jn 10, 10).

 The Holy Scriptures, published by contain a simple note on this word of Jesus: “eternal life.”

Jesus brought eternal life to people. However, the term “eternal life” is understood in two ways. People usually talk about eternal life, meaning life in eternity, after death, when this early earthly life ends. That is the first meaning of this term – eschatological. However, a Christian begins to possess eternal life (the life that Jesus Christ brought) already in this life; already, during his earthly life, he begins to participate in it. In baptism, he received it in the form of God’s grace as the seed of a new, supernatural life, which is constantly developing until definitively, at the second coming of Christ, it will grow into the whole fruit of Christ’s divine life. Therefore, the eternal life present in the Christian in this earthly life is the second meaning of that expression. Both meanings are correct and belong to the fullness of the glad tidings.

A Christian should perceive the connection between the eschatological and already at this time conceived and experienced eternal life. The roots of eternity begin in time. Whoever lives in sanctifying grace has already “passed from death to life” in this earthly life (Jn 5:24). Although he does not yet experience the fullness of the future glorified life, he has already entered it. He can lose it through mortal sin. Therefore, he must guard, develop, and protect it. But in his earthly life, he should live from the fullness of eternal life, which was brought and given to him by Jesus Christ.

In modern times, “eternal life” has been subjected to irrational criticism, and modern man often lives as if there were no God. Eternal life has been declared an idol to be scattered, and those who praise it have been declared criminals. The legendary modern Zarathustra says: “I adjure you, my brothers, stay true to the earth and do not believe those who tell you of otherworldly hopes!  Crime against God used to be the greatest crime, but God died, and these criminals died with him. To commit a crime against the earth and value the interior of the unfathomable more than the meaning of the earth is now the most terrible thing!” (F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, First Volume, 3).

It would certainly be a perversion and a sick escape from the world to think only of heaven, or if all Christians were obliged to go to the desert or into solitude and devote themselves only to prayer. It would be against God and eternal life in heaven not to think about the earth’s needs. Here and there an individual, a freak, may appear who commits such a mistake. However, the inseparable teaching and practice of the Church have always been to connect prayer with work (“ora et labora”), to connect concern for eternal life with concern for earthly life. Every true believer is well aware of Jesus’ words (which will be the criterion for an orthodox life at the Last Judgment): “Whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did for me” (cf. Mt 25, 31-46). Finally, the proof of this unity of practice and teaching are the hospitals and schools that the Church and its best children have always founded and built to serve the people of this world, regardless of religion, race, nationality, etc.

Looking to eternal life is not a crime against the earth. On the contrary, only from his perspective can a person properly look at this earth, its values, the ratio, and its relationship to it. It is precisely the man in captivity of temporality, who is not interested in the “unfathomable” depths of his human nature and his definitive eternal goal, that is the greatest pest of this earth. Whoever neglects the eternal eschatological life and the eternal life present in man’s earthly life robs him of the most essential part of his nature. He performs a spiritual abortion on him because he destroys the embryo of the fruit of eternal life in him!

When Jesus wanted to bring people closer to the fact of eternal life, which has become part of their human existence, he did so using various comparisons and parables. I like the one about the mustard seed, which when planted is the smallest of all, but when it grows it becomes a huge tree, in whose branches the birds of the sky can make a nest (Mt 13, 31-32). This parable encourages my frailty, because it tells me that I have the power of life, the power of eternal life, which no obstacle can stop and which can take hold even in the most inappropriate place. The parable of the seed tells me that as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have a life within me that is stronger than the death of temptation and sin; that I have life in me, over which not even the “second death” has power (cf. Rev. 20:6).