19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Aug. 11, 2013
Luke 12: 35-40
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.
“Be like servants who await their master’s
return … ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks” (Luke 12: 35).
Last Sunday at a Salesian summer camp in England,
a 27-year-old Salesian seminarian was engaged in activity with some
youngsters. Suddenly, without warning, a
large tree branch broke off and smashed his head. Despite immediate first aid and helicopter transport
to a hospital, he was killed instantly.
(No one else was hurt, thank God!)
Yesterday Lindsey Stewart was supposed to marry
Brian Bond in Piermont, across the Hudson.
On the evening of July 26, they and 4 friends were crossing the river in
a power boat. They struck one of the construction
barges moored in the river, which the survivors claim they never saw. Lindsey and Mark Lennon, the best man, were
killed. That story was widely covered in the newspapers and on the radio and
TV; most of you probably saw or heard it.
“Blessed are those servants whom the master
finds vigilant on his arrival,” Jesus says in today’s gospel (12:37). Blessed are those disciples who are ready
when the Lord calls them and who welcome his coming (or their going to him, if
you prefer to put it that way).
Last February, Pope Benedict gave as one of his
reasons for resigning his desire, or his need, to prepare for death—to prepare
to greet our Master, the Lord Jesus. But
as the news informs us every day, not everyone lives to be 86 and has the
luxury, so to speak, of putting his material and spiritual affairs in order. Very, very often, death comes suddenly and
unannounced, like a thief in the nite (cf. 12:39)—in an accident, a heart
attack, violence. It was true in Jesus’
time, and obviously it’s still true.
“You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of
Man will come” (12:40), or we will be summoned before the Son of Man.
 |
| The Last Judgment, by Jan van Eyck |
We all know this. But we don’t think about it very often, do
we? Are we ready and waiting for the
Master’s return, or ready and willing to go to him and present an accounting of
our lives—of our actions, our inactions, our words, even our thoughts and
desires, as our confession of sin at the beginning of Mass states?
When we were in school, our teachers probably
advised us that the best preparation for an exam, whether it was the SAT, the
Regents, or just a classroom test, was diligent daily study—attentiveness in
class, reviewing notes, reading the assigned material, doing our homework. Cramming isn’t a highly effective way to
study. It doesn’t work very well, does
it?
Neither is putting off our spiritual conversion
until we’re facing a serious illness or the decrepitude of old age a serious
approach to our salvation—that’s like cramming.
What if the Lord gives us a pop quiz, as he did Brother Greg, Lindsey
Stewart, and Mark Lennon? What does
diligent daily study consist of?
Of course, 1st it’s necessary that we enroll in
the class, isn’t it? We have to sign up
for Kingdom of God 101. We have to
commit ourselves to live out the sacrament of Baptism that we received so many
years ago, to be true followers of our Master, the Lord Jesus.
Such commitment means, as our baptismal promises
say, renouncing Satan and all his evil; doing our best to live lives of virtue
and not of sin—whatever form sin may take (review the 10 commandments, for
starters).
Then such commitment means talking to God on a
regular basis—what we call prayer;
and listening to what he has to say, thru his written Word (the Bible), thru
the teaching of his Church, thru his voice in our hearts (that’s the reverse
half of prayer). Just as we look forward
to visiting our parents (or our children, as the case may be) or old friends, we
look forward to this regular contact with our friend Jesus and his Father—contact
that enlightens us, strengthens us, empowers us to resist Satan and all his
evil, and to do the right thing, the good thing in God’s eyes.
When we live that way, as best we can, then
we’ll be “ready to open immediately when our Master comes and knocks,” and
we’ll be among those servants whom Jesus calls “blessed.”
God bless you!
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