Saint Paul says: “The appointed time has grown very short.”
And then: “The present form of this world is passing away.”
He is not telling Christians to despise marriage, possessions or ordinary human life. He is reminding us that none of these things is our final end.
Everything here passes.
Possessions pass into other hands. Success is forgotten. Pleasure fades.
Even suffering, however terrible it seems now, will not last for ever.
We were made for God.
That helps us understand the strange blessings of the Gospel.
“Blessed are you who are poor.”
“Blessed are you who hunger.”
“Blessed are you who weep.”
And then the warnings:
“Woe to you who are rich.”
“Woe to you who are full now.”
Our Lord is not saying that poverty itself makes someone holy or that possessing things is automatically sinful.
He is exposing the danger of treating this world as though it were enough.
The rich person can become so comfortable here that Heaven begins to seem unnecessary.
The poor person may possess very little, yet know deeply that everything depends upon God.
Saint Peter Claver understood that distinction.
When ships carrying slaves arrived at Cartagena, he went down into conditions most people preferred not even to see.
He brought food and medicine, cared for the sick, instructed those he could in the faith, baptised those properly prepared, and defended their human dignity.
He called himself their servant.
Why could he do that?
Because he saw what the world around him had forgotten.
These were not cargo. They were not property. They were persons.
Each possessed an immortal soul.
The world might place a price upon their bodies.
Christ had placed the price of His own Blood upon their souls.
If this world is passing away, then we must learn to judge things according to eternity.
A person who appears insignificant before the world is infinitely precious before God.
And someone surrounded by comfort and admiration may be spiritually poor.
That should examine us.
What do we notice in other people?
Their usefulness? Their status? Whether they are easy to love?
Or do we see a soul made for God?
Saint Peter Claver went where Christ was hidden beneath suffering and degradation.
We may never face circumstances like his.
But we meet the same Christ whenever someone is overlooked, inconvenient or treated as though they matter less.
The present form of this world is passing away.
But the soul remains.
And the Christian learns to live now according to what will still matter in eternity.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 