In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was often tossed around that “the pandemic is a great equalizer.” Quickly, it became clear that this was far from true. “The virus is ushering in the greatest rise in economic inequality in decades,” wrote Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post, reporting that, according to The World Bank last year, “about 100 million people are falling back into extreme poverty.”
While it is indisputable that the virus is killing people the world over, across socioeconomic divides and disparities, prospects of survival from complications related to the disease are still greater for those with better living standards and financial means to access healthcare. What is, nevertheless, true is that whoever you are—rich or poor; women or man; Black or Coloured—you do not carry your earthly possessions to
your grave.
And so, in the end, the only equalizer is death itself. “Death puts an end to all these joys of earth,” writes St. Alphonsus Liguori, a doctor of the Church and the founder of the Redemptionist order, in Preparation for Death.“Even though he be a prince, carries nothing with him to the grave; all his glory remains on the bed on which he expires.”
For your reflection:
Consider that after your death, all the material possessions—however many or few these may be—will be left behind. Death reduces us all to the same nothingness with which we entered the world when we took our first breath. How does this change your perspective on life?
