November 16, 2014
The end is near! Our liturgical year concludes next weekend with the Feast of Christ the
King. Today’s scripture readings, therefore, speak to us about the end times – the time when we
will be held accountable for how we have lived our lives.
“…The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night…Therefore, let us not sleep as
the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” The simple truth is that we do not know when we will
die. Jesus reminds us constantly in the Gospels that all we have is the present moment. There is
no guarantee that we will be living five minutes from now, five hours from now, or five days
from now. All that we have is the present moment in which we are now alive. It is our
responsibility, therefore, to treat every moment of our lives as precious and not to miss the
opportunities God presents to us to affirm our faith in God and to affirm our desire to live in
conformity with what God expects of us as the sons and daughters of God.
It is not easy to stay alert and sober as St. Paul encourages us to do! As human beings, we
can easily tire of the effort required of us to live in faithfulness to what God expects of us in
every moment of every day. There are so many demands on us that it is hard to stay awake to all
the ways in which we are called to give witness to our faith in Jesus Christ. When we find our
spiritual energy is waning and we are falling asleep spiritually, this is when we need to renew our
prayer and seek the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist to awaken our hearts once
more to the desire to be faithful to what God expects of us. It is equally hard for us to stay sober,
that is, to not to allow ourselves to become so inebriated with the pleasures of this world that we
render ourselves incapable of living the Christian virtues that should shape our lives –
compassion, mercy, an openness to all persons, generosity of heart and soul, a concern for the
needs of others, particularly those who are poor and vulnerable.
Live as if every moment of every day truly matters – because it does!