Uh-Oh - No Spaghetti-Os!

Oklahoma death row inmate Thomas Grasso requested for his last meal the popular canned pasta, Spaghetti-Os. When served plain spaghetti, he was enraged and threatened to notify the press.

As death nears, usually our value system begins to change. But persons who deny - or give no thought to - an afterlife, and especially an afterlife with a resurrected body, would do well to meditate on the words of Paul: "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' Do not be misled...Come back to your senses as you ought" (1 Cor 15:32-34).

Paul could identify with any death row inmate for he was near death many times: "Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God...On him we have set our hope" (2 Cor 1:9-10). Imagine how Paul might respond to that death row inmate finicky about his last meal, with o hope or concern about life after death. "We do not want you to be ignoramt [about death] ...like the rest...who have no hole" (1 Thes 4:13). "If only for this life we have hope...we are to be pitied more than all men" (1 Cor 15:19).

With Paul, all of us who suffer might say, "I die every day" (15:31). But does that "daily death" make us eternity-focused?

This excerpt is from the book One-Minute Meditations for Busy People, by John H. Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/video recordings can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408 or www.Catholicbooks.net