Recently, in Sunday’s second reading, we read the letter of St. James. This letter has many interesting threads – more and less known. While praying today with this letter, my attention was drawn to a fragment which was given the title “Unreliability of human plans” (Jas 4: 13-17):

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”— you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.” But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.

After 2020, we cannot pass by these words indifferently. In the pandemic, many of us lost loved ones, jobs, and money, but it seems to me that every single one of us has lost our plans. It turned out that in the 21st century we cannot predict everything, we cannot deal with everything. Probably for a short time, but still, we’ve learned a little bit of humility towards the unknown future.

Yesterday I found out that my uncle from my extended family died after a very short illness lasting only 3 months. In one moment, not only his plans, but also his family, friends, co-workers’ plans proved to be unreliable… Nobody is ever ready for death. It is hard not to reflect on the fragility of life at this point.

In Spanish, the phrase “hasta mañana” (until tomorrow) is often used with the addition of “si Dios quiere” (if God wills it). I like this saying very much, because it makes me realise that although I have a million plans for tomorrow, next month and in half a year, which I always don’t have enough time for, ultimately life is not in my hands and the only thing I can do is trust in the One who has it in his hands entirely. He sees the big picture, so I can focus on being here and now.