One of the hardest lessons to learn is that your life is not about you. One could even say that to understand that idea is the secret of living. We were designed by God to give ourselves away in acts of self-forgetfulness, and we will never know happiness until we learn to do so. A light was made to shine. A fish was made to swim. A bird was made to fly. And a human person was made to live for God, and for others. Our sadness and anxiety only increase whenever we imagine our lives to be a grand self-actualization project —  as if we were created only to serve our personal ambitions and to make all our dreams come true. As the Second Vatican Council states, “Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (“Gaudium et Spes,” 24).

Grave robbery was a lucrative crime in the ancient world, but it was also perilous and complicated. To carry out the task, one needed at least 10 men working together as an efficient, well-trained team. Stone masons, torchbearers, water-bearers and many strong backs were needed to dislodge a stone as large as six feet in diameter, weighing as much as two tons, and anchored in place by a gap carved into the ground. All this had to be done quickly and silently, under cover of darkness in the dead of night, because by an edict of Caesar Augustus, the penalty for grave robbery was death.