103 posts 8/30/2007 9:23 pm
Last Read:
8/30/2007 9:25 pm
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The Unknown Day and Hour... Reflect
The Unknown Day and Hour... Reflect
The theme of our gospel reading, is that of vigilance. Jesus teaches his disciples to be always ready to meet him when he returns suddenly at the end of time. “Be on the alert,” he warns us.
The parable, warns us to be alert and focuses more particularly on the danger of relaxing our efforts to live good lives, of becoming slack Christians, of neglecting our duties. And that, indeed, is a danger for all of us. We make resolutions every New Year, maybe, but how long do we keep them? We go on recollection, confess our sins to a priest, resolve to do better in the future–only to backslide miserably after a few weeks or even a few days. Then, of course, discouragements sets in. Ah, discouragements! The devil’s favorite temptations for the committed Christians who wants to do better but goes on falling back into the same old sins. Isn’t it just as well, the devil whispers in your ears, to stop trying so hard, and just give up the whole impossible business? Then is the time when we separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the saints from the lukewarm Christians. This is when the first group continues trying without ever quitting, and when the second group accepts mediocrity as way of life.
In this connection, there is a relevant anecdote reported in The Saying of the Desert Fathers. It goes like this:
“A brother asked Abba Sisoes, ‘What shall I do, Abba, for I have fallen?’
The old man say to him, ‘Get up again.’
The brother said, ‘I have gotten up again, but I have fallen again.’
The old man said, ‘Get up again and again.’
So then the brother said, ‘How many times?’
Abba Sisoes answered the brother in one single phrase: ‘Until your death’” (Cistercian Studies n. 59 ).
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365 Days with the Lord
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