Thursday,
August 25, 2016
21st Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: 1 Cor 1;1-9
Gospel: Matthew 24:42-51
Jesus said to his disciples, “Stay awake, then, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Just think about this: if the owner of the house knew that the thief would come by night around a certain hour, he would stay awake to prevent his house to be broken into. So be alert, for the Son of Man will come at the hour you least expect.
“Imagine a capable servant whom his master has put in charge of his household to give them food at the proper time. Fortunate indeed is that servant whom his master will find at work when he comes. Truly, I say to you, his lord will entrust that one with everything he has.
“Not so with the bad servant who thinks: My master is delayed. And he begins ill-treating his fellow servants while eating and drinking with drunkards. But his master will come on the day he does not know and at the hour he least expects. He will dismiss that servant and deal with him as with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The author of life hasn’t done anything about death’s unpredictability except to exhort us to match it with alertness. He said, “Stay awake for you do not know the day your Lord will come.” The word Awake starts with the big “A” – the same letter that the word “acceptance” begins with. To be awake means to accept that we cannot add a single minute to our life. If one cannot accept this, he will be unprepared for death’s coming because he will live like he is eternal.
Clinical Psychology acknowledges this big A as crucial at the moment of death. In her 1969 book on Death and Dying, Swiss-born psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, outlined five stages people undergo before dying. These have come to be known collectively as DABDA. The letters stand for denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If we use “low morale” for “depression”, and “OKEY” for “acceptance”, DABDA becomes DIABLO: Denial, Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Low morale, and the big Okey! DIABLO are the stages that demonize us as we approach death.
Many get stuck at the denial stage and never make it to the big A. The biggest denial one can make is refusing to prepare for death because he thinks he still has lots of time. He sets aside the things of God believing he will have time later to make up for lost bonding moments with the Lord at his old age. This is a big risk, for many have died young. The wisest thing to do is to be alert. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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