Cycle C - Year I:

11 August 2013: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical color: Green)

Luke 12:32-48

Stay vigilant!

A mantra says, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!" But what if today is actually the last day, and that there is no more tomorrow? How would you spend your last day?

How we deal with the last day spells the difference between believers and non-believers. For the latter, there is nothing more after this life. So enjoy and be merry till the end. But for believers, we know that life is not ended; it is only changed.

Whether believers or non-believers the surest thing that will happen is the "end time". Everyone and everything will come to pass some day. For the living, "death" is our experience of the end time. For human beings in particular, it may come at any time, at any age, anywhere. Sometimes, people may know that death is imminent and can actually prepare for it, like those with terminal illness. Others are put off just with the thought of dying soon, and may rebel against anybody, against the world, and even against God. They are in denial mode and refuse to prepare for death. The vast majority of us have no idea or don't get any advance warning of the end time. It can come like a thief in the night, at an hour we don't expect, and thus catches us unprepared.

The sad thing is that we are a society of procrastinators. Whether we just don't want to face difficult challenges in life, or we are afraid to fail, and so we have the tendency to say, "I'll do it later."

Today's Gospel reminds us that of all that we are given in knowledge, we do not know when we will be called to account for our lives. The theme of readiness for the second coming of the Lord is to be found towards the end of the Gospel story from Saint Luke.

So the message of the parable in the Gospel reading is that disciple-servant must be ready for the return of the master, who will come and knock at the door.

We don't know when the Master will come and take us to the heavenly banquet of eternal union with God. Will we be ready? We will not be ready if we are more interested in feeding our worldly desires. So Jesus warns us not to waste time being lazy about purging our lives of earthly treasures.

In practical life, how do we prepare for the end time? In other words, since we do not know when death will come, what should we do?

Jesus says that we must stand ready at all times. We don't wait for God to tell us when or where we will die, because He will not tell us. Instead, we must live a life of vigilant faith, putting things right today, here and now. There is nothing more urgent today than to cleanse our heart and pray for God's forgiveness. Then we need not worry when the call to final judgment comes.

Because for the good Christian, death will be like our graduation day, and not an examination day.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!