Friday, Octobe 27, 2017
29th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading:
Rom 7:18-25
Gospel: Luke 12:54-59
Jesus said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once: ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when the wind blows from the south, you say: ‘It will be hot’; and so it is. You superficial people! You understand the signs of the earth and the sky, but you don’t understand the present times. And why do you not judge for yourselves what is fit? When you go with your accuser before the court, try to settle the case on the way, lest he drag you before the judge and the judge deliver you to the jailer, and the jailer throw you in prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
An entrepreneur crafted an advertisement for his funeral business this way: “If you don’t take good care of yourself, we will take good care of you”. Of the deaths taken care of by funeral parlors how many percent are cases of natural deaths? It would be interesting to find out. Off hand, it is safe to conclude that funeral parlors thrive on peoples’ failure to take care of themselves. The late Physicist Dr. George Schwarz, SDB who was my mentor in College Physics often told me, “If you don’t take care of yourself, who will?” In jest I would reply, “The funeral parlor, Father”. He died of old age and the Salesians of Don Bosco Makati took very good care of him, and the funeral parlor too.
Admittedly, no amount of self-care can perpetuate earthly life. Somehow someday funeral parlors will compete on our dead bodies, and these establishments must be poetically eyeing on us, so to speak, each time we attend wakes. Death itself might even secretly conduct a raffle over our names after we have signed the memorial logbook. Seriously now, funeral parlors are only one of the many signs of the shortness of life. Few people respond to these signs. Today’s Gospel laments: “You superficial people! You understand the signs of the earth and the sky, but you don’t understand the present times.” While the present can rest secure on the foundations of the past, it can never count on the future with certainty. It does not take so much wisdom to understand what the present times stand for.
Understanding this sign is profound when it spurs us on to prepare for death. The Gospel talks about reconciliation. Openness to reconciliation keeps us ready for death. On Judgment Day God will use our relationship with others as measure of our love for him. Before funeral parlors compete over our lifeless bodies let us love God in others today. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo
P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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