Thursday, August 31, 2017
21st Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading:
1 Thess 3:7-13 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)
Death, although unpredictable, is inevitable. It’s happening is in fact the only certainty which humanity shares in common. Surprisingly, God who is the author of life hasn’t done anything about it except to exhort people to match death’s unpredictability with alertness. If that’s all he did, then death must really be part of life.
Jesus said, “Stay awake…” Awake starts with the big A, and the most appropriate word it can stand for in relation to life and death is Acceptance. If one cannot accept that he is finite, he lives like he is here to lord it over others forever. He will be most unprepared at deathbed. One’s degree of acceptance of his finite nature calibrates how awake he is in relation to death.
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 that have come to be known collectively by the acronym “DABDA” (Denial and isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance). A little adjustment will yield the acronym DIABLO: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Low morale (synonym for depression), and the big Okey (acceptance).
“DIABLO” sounds appropriate because these really are the stages that demonize us as we approach death. This is another big reason why we should stay awake. The devil never sleeps until he can drive the last nail to our coffin to see to it that we will never see the light of the resurrection. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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