That is the beginning here and now of eternal life – the dealing of a mortal blow at one’s lower self with all its unChristlike features, and the sharing of one’s life with the Risen Christ.  As St Paul wrote to his flock, “…you…must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.  “For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (RSV Catholic edition, Romans 6:11; Colossians 3:3).

A man once asked Our Lord to tell him what he should do to inherit eternal life.  And the answer which Our Lord gave was to love God with the whole of one’s being and to love one’s neighbour as oneself.

But for all that, eternal life still remains the free gift of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.  It is not – and cannot be – a thing that anyone can earn, because, although eternal life is the sharing of our life with God, it is also first and foremost the sharing by God of his life with us.  That is something which we can never deserve, but only accept with gratitude and wonder.