Thursday, August 28, 2014
21st Week in
Ordinary Time
St. Augustine
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 Lord would like us to match death’s unpredictability with alertness. He said, “Stay awake for you do not know the day your Lord will come.” Alert starts with the big A (acceptance). If one deceives himself into thinking that he can indefinitely delay his departure from this life, he forgets he is mortal. He then acts like an immortal being and arrogates undue powers to himself over his fellowmen. To be ready for death one must first accept who he is: that he is mortal and he can die anytime. Without the big “A” one can never be prepared for death.
Clinical Psychology has coined the acronym DABDA to immortalize the requisites of a happy transition at death bead. DABDA stands for denial, anger, blame, depression and acceptance. In this short list of stages of death and dying, acceptance is the crowning glory. Before one can accept the fact that he is dying, he goes through the stages of denial, anger, blame, and depression. It is unfortunate that there are no doors that shut behind a person as he moves to the next stages. This means that one can vacillate between stages as he reluctantly moves towards the final stage of acceptance. Most people die before reaching the big “A”.
If most give up their spirit before reaching the stage of acceptance, the wiser strategy is to start moving through these stages earlier. By the time we are at deathbed we should have gone through these difficult stages already. — Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:[email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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