Gospel Reflection 20071202
We have a role to play in supporting the recovery of people close to us.It is important that we adopt healing attitudes in order to support people close to us when they are experiencing suffering - mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. There are eight things we can do: 1) Educate yourself. Learn about what is wrong. 2) Learn what types of activities would be appropriate and initiate them. 3) Be there. Don't shy away, 4) Listen, listen, listen. 5) Don't be judgmental. Let the person express what they need to without labels of good or bad.. 6) Be patient. 7) Don't let yourself be pushed away. Stay in touch. 8) Pray. Listen to your heart and let God guide you.
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Jesus Warns About Possible Death of the Human Spirit
December 2, 2007
First Sunday of Advent
Gospel
Mt 24:37-44
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
In those days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
up to the day that Noah entered the ark.
They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”
Today’s gospel speaks about the coming of the Lord at the end of the world and how to prepare for it. In our world today, there are two big mistakes people make with regard to the coming of the Lord. One is to prepare for it with paranoid anxiety. The other is to dismiss it with nonchalant abandon and do nothing about it.
It is good to be given a “heads up” before a difficult situation appears. When that difficulty involves death itself, the one who warns us may well have saved our life. That is precisely what Jesus does in the Gospel, but the death of which he warns us is not just the death of the body, but of the human spirit.
Strange though it is, we all need to be reminded that our lives on this earth will have a conclusion. It will be the most important day of our lives, when the truth of who we are and of what we have done will be made manifest. On that day (and it will come), we will meet the Son of Man face to face. All of our deeds and motivations, both secret and known, good and bad, will be brought to light. We will not be able to hide or deny them. We will rejoice for the true good in us, and be ashamed of what is truly evil. The judgment we receive will be the result of how we have lived and, therefore, of whom we have become. In childhood and youth, a person’s life is like mixed cement in their own hands; as they move on, the cement is shaped by the decisions they take, but, it also hardens and it becomes more and more difficult to change the shape it is given. We get used to what we make of ourselves. What are habit and custom, if not choices which were once fresh and conscious and which have become repetitive and fixed? If those habits and customs are formed by decisions made out of love for the truth, then a person becomes more and more virtuous. If we continually choose evil, then we become more and more vicious. And if we try to choose both, we will become spiritually insane, a living, and a dying, contradiction.
Jesus makes reference to Noah in order to give the people of the Christian era their “heads up” and to get themselves in good shape before their “cement” sets. The book of Genesis explains repeatedly that corrupt excesses of humanity is why God chose to destroy it. Noah was mocked for building the ark, but mockery soon turned to vindication for him. How many people in our own time mock those who try to live according to Christ? How many Christians disdain the teaching of Christ’s Church about good and evil because of worldly-wise preferences? Baptism alone, or membership of the ark of the Church, does not guarantee salvation! “Not all those who say to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.” As in the time of Noah, so in our own time, there are many who live, to use the words of St. Paul, performing the ”works of darkness”, in “orgies and drunkenness, in promiscuity and lust, in rivalry and jealousy”. We could add, “in power-mongering and oppression, in corruption and fraud, in pedophilia and lying cover-ups” and, alas, many other things.
The gospel uses two images to make the point that “you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42b). One is the flood which overtook the unprepared people of Noah’s time. The other is the analogy of a thief in the night, who always comes unannounced. The Lord’s coming and the end of the world as we know it will occur suddenly and unexpectedly. It will come unannounced, springing a surprise on an unsuspecting world. Like a wise householder, therefore, we are urged to be watchful and ready.
Jesus says: “Stay awake!” St. Paul echoes him: “it is now the hour for you to awake from sleep.” The works of darkness want to keep us in the dark, in the sleepiness in which the weight and the power of the flesh are strongest. Anything we choose to do which is not in accordance with the Spirit and doctrine of Christ, as it is taught by the Church, is a work of darkness and makes us spiritually sleepy. You cannot espouse the ways of dark human wisdom, however clever and relevant they may seem, and be truly ready for Christ. Not to be ready for Christ is to reject him, either by outright opposition or by indifference. Not to be ready to do Christ’s will, to carry out his program for one’s life, to choose what to do and to be under his gaze: all of this is to say that one’s life is about oneself, not about him. If I do not at least desire to live my entire life as and for Christ, then I am simply living for myself. In that case, for me, the coming of the Son of Man is of no consequence, and so my choice for eternity is to live in my own obscurity. What I may not see, however, is that in an ego-centered eternity, I will not have the gifts of creation to exploit and enjoy: I will be alone with my own self-made misery.
Stay Awake! Our Lord doesn’t sugarcoat his advice. He knows that death awaits each of us and that we tend to want to ignore that reality. The best way to live each day is to live it as if it were our last day. That means having a serious prayer life and acting with a deep spirit of charity.
What does it mean to be watchful and ready? It does not mean to go about listening to and getting excited over the end-of-time prophecies and visions that have multiplied in our day. Rather it is to be more assiduous and faithful to our duties as responsible children of the world and of God. The early Christians used sleep as figurative language for the life of sinful indulgence. Paul says in 1Thessalonians 5:6-8
So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
To be awake, therefore, is to live a life of faithful service to the Lord, following the Lord’s commands and abiding in his grace. There is no better way for us to ready ourselves for the unexpected coming of the Lord at the end of time than by faithfully carrying out his commands in our daily lives.
Let us resolve to shun the doomsday paranoia on the one hand and reckless complacency on the other. Let us resolve to be always awake in the spirit by living a life of faith and love in service to the Lord so that whenever he comes we shall be ready to follow him into the glory of eternity.
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St. Nicholas
(d. 350?)
The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to St. Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honor him, and it is claimed that, after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet, historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.
As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.
Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast. In the English-speaking countries, St. Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.
Comment:
The critical eye of modern history makes us take a deeper look at the legends surrounding St. Nicholas. But perhaps we can utilize the lesson taught by his legendary charity, look deeper at our approach to material goods in the Christmas season and seek ways to extend our sharing to those in real need.
Quote:
“In order to be able to consult more suitably the welfare of the faithful according to the condition of each one, a bishop should strive to become duly acquainted with their needs in the social circumstances in which they live.... He should manifest his concern for all, no matter what their age, condition, or nationality, be they natives, strangers, or foreigners” (Decree on the Bishops' Pastoral Office, 16).
posted by Mike Young @ 11:19 AM
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