As has been truly said, “This life is not the play, only the rehearsal.  The play itself is given in the life to come” (Note)  And Our Lord never allows us to move very far from that background of eternal life against which the Gospel is presented.

We have only to think of his parables of the judgement, such as the wheat and the weeds (tares), the one stored in the barn, the other burned in the fire: or the edible and inedible fish, the one gathered into baskets, the other thrown away (see Matthew 13: 24-30; 47-48).  The same warning of the separation of human souls which the next life must bring, is contained in this parable of the Dishonest Manager.  For the time has to come when God will say to us, “Give me an account of your management, for you cannot be my manager any longer” (NRSV, Luke 16: 2).

The state of that account will be determined by the depth of our penitence for all the wrong that we have thought and said and done; and by the persistence of our endeavour to lead a life that expresses a true love for God for himself alone and an active goodwill towards all our fellow human beings for his sake.

For at the end of the day, that is the only relevant record of one’s life.

Note

Paraphrase from chap 23 of novel entitled John Inglesant written by Joseph Henry Shorthouse and published in 1881.