Daily Meditation: Thursday, February 5, 2004

Breath - human life: interval of time between the first and the last Breath

02/05/2004

In the Book of Genesis it is said that God ‘breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life' and that ‘man became a living being'. Thus man's life began as a breath given by God. And it is true that for each human being life begins with an inhalation. As soon as a child leaves the womb of its mother, the first thing it must do in order to become an inhabitant of the earth is to take a breath: it opens its little mouth and cries. Everyone hears it and is happy that everything is fine, it is alive! Because as a result of this inhalation, its lungs fill with air and begin to function. And conversely, when we say that a person has breathed his last, everyone understands that he has died. Breath is both the beginning and the end. Life begins with an inhalation and ends with an exhalation, and between these two moments, a long succession of inhalations and exhalations sustain the life within us.