November 28, 2015
Saturday, 34th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st reading: Dn 7:15-27
Gospel: Lk 21:34-36
Jesus said to his disciples: “Be on your guard; let not your
hearts be weighed down with a life of pleasure, drunkenness and worldly cares, lest that day catch you suddenly as a trap. For it will come u-pon all the inhabitants of the whole earth. But watch at all times and pray, that you may be able to escape all that is bound to happen and to stand before the Son of Man.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Today’s Gospel’s warning to “watch at all times and pray” prepares us for the season of Advent. Gospel themes like this remind me of a security guard I saw seated at his post. He was smiling while reading and replying to the text messages he was recei-ving in his cellular phone. Suddenly a street kid bumped on him and ran away with his cellular phone. The other guard securing the next building was able to grab the boy by the arm and recovered for him the cellular phone.
As a security guard the victim was good for nothing. Were one to hire him, he would need another guard to watch over him and secure him. The wisest option for the employer is to fire him and hire a vigilant one.
Watching in prayer at all times demands a similar level of alertness to the signs of the times. The great sign of the times we need to pay attention to is our finite nature vulnerable to the incidents of death among which is unpredictability. As if unpredictability is not enough, death comes to the unprepared.
Three years ago I met a priest who had prepared himself for death when doctors said he would die unless he underwent heart surgery. That was twelve years ago then when he received the warning and yet he was still alive even without undergoing surgery. When one is prepared to die, death appears to be detached and disinteres-ted. When death finally came to him early this year, there was nothing more for him to do except to lie in state. He even had a Requiem Mass guide prepared for his own funeral. I knew the Mass guide was old because the stapler bullets were already rusty.
Death may be inevitable yet we can embarrass it by being prepared through vigilance in prayer. This implies moderation in life’s comforts. Today’s Gospel tells us that drunkenness and over-indulgence in a life of pleasure distract us, making us fall into the trap when the ‘unexpec-ted day’ comes.
Like the guard toying with his cell phone while on duty, we’d be squandering precious life if we don’t prepare. Before we know it, the day comes and catches us off guard like a trap. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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