November 12, 2015 Thursday, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time 1st reading: Wisdom 7:22 – 8:1
Gospel: Lk 17:20–25
The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was to come. He answered, “The kingdom of God is not like something you can observeand say of it: ‘Look, here it is! There it is!’ See, the kingdom ofGod is among you.” And Jesus said to his disciples, “The time is at hand when you will long to see one of the glorious days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Then people will tell you: ‘Look there!
Look here!’ Do not go, do not follow them. As lightning flashes from one end ofthe sky to the other, so will it be with the Son of Man. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this people.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life
Experience)
The Pharisees taught that God’s kingdom was a future reality though already observable through the signs of the times. Jesus taught the people more. He said that while the Pharisees were right about the kingdom being a future reality and observable through the signs of the times, his preaching and healing ministry made it present.
Jesus’ new teaching elevates the role that this lifetime plays in our quest for salvation. This lifetime serves as preparation time for that eternal life with God. If we do not start living out our fundamental option for God today, the unpredictability of death may not allow us to exercise that option anymore.
Even if death were made predictable, this life still plays an important role in our quest for salvation owing to the difficulty of changing paradigm at the last minute. No evil person can make the big switch to God at the last moment of his life. Paradigm does not change overnight because it involves abandoning habits – a feat hard to perform more so if one is already at the brink of death. Consider this play of words: “Habit is hard to remove. If you remove H, you still have a bit. If you remove H and A, you still have bit. If you remove H and A and B, you still have it!” The moral is clear: when one is in the habit of living the godless life and the shadow of death creeps behind him unexpectedly, the brief interval between the appearance of the shadow and the arrival of death for real will not allow the person to abandon his bad habits. He dies as he had lived.
Even if a person were strong enough to make the big switch at a “scheduled” death, do you think the devil will take it lying down? He had the man in his lifetime and the devil will make sure he will have him forever. The wisest option is to live our choice for God now. The kingdom has begun. It is here in our midst! – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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