Stay awake and stand ready,
because you do not know the hour
when the Son of Man is coming. MT 24:42, 44
1 THESSALONIANS 3:7-13
My Soul's Beloved,
This beautiful letter, written by St. Paul to the church in Thessalonica, is filled with love and thanksgiving. Lord, I long for the day when these beautiful sentiments will be my own as I pray for those I love, those nearest, dearest, and closest to my heart. How I long for each of them to make a sacramental confession and return to the sacramental life of the Church. I long for them to take their rightful place in Your Body, which You have made for them. I long for them to receive the inheritance in the Kingdom of God that the Father has prepared for them before He laid the foundations of the world.
St. Paul can hardly contain his joy that the people of God have remained faithful, holding on to the Good News and sharing it in turn. He is away from them and prays earnestly to see them again. I, too, am separated by miles and miles and oceans between those who are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, but they can never be truly separated from me because they are one with me. My thoughts, my prayers, my sighs, my tears, my longings keep them ever before me and before You, my Lord, and I have every confidence that before You call me home to Yourself, I too will experience the joy that St. Paul experienced. Thank You, Lord, for the faith I have in Your love and Your faithfulness.
Brothers, your faith has been a great comfort to us in the middle of our own troubles and sorrows; now we can breathe again, as you are still holding firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before our God on your account? We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith.
May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, make it easy for us to come to you. May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.
PSALM 89(90):3-4,12-14,17
Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.
You turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
MATTHEW 24:42-51
My Soul's Beloved,
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
‘What sort of servant, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their food at the proper time? Happy that servant if his master’s arrival finds him at this employment. I tell you solemnly, he will place him over everything he owns. But as for the dishonest servant who says to himself, “My master is taking his time,” and sets about beating his fellow servants and eating and drinking with drunkards, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.’
Brothers, your faith has been a great comfort to us in the middle of our own troubles and sorrows; now we can breathe again, as you are still holding firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before our God on your account? We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith.
May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, make it easy for us to come to you. May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.
PSALM 89(90):3-4,12-14,17
Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.
You turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.
MATTHEW 24:42-51
My Soul's Beloved,
It is so easy to become careless, to make excuses, to become neglectful of the little things that are necessary for self-control and to discipline our flesh. It is easy to be less and less vigilant, especially when the temptation to give in to the wiles of the world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly vying for our attention and waiting for that moment when we have fallen asleep to attack, enter, and rob, plunder, destroy, and kill. We cannot lose sight of the goal. We cannot say, 'I will begin tomorrow', for time is guaranteed to no one. When the hour arrives, and it will, and if we are asleep at our post, we can be sure that we will crash and burn and will have no one to blame but ourselves. Like the foolish virgins, no matter how we wail and beg to be allowed to enter, the door to the Kingdom will be firmly barred against us eternally.
What kind of servant am I, today, Lord? Were You to come for me this day, would You find me ready, or have I become lax, lazy, drowsy, befuddled, weak, having been a wastrel of the time given to me and the talents allotted to me? I do not know, Lord. I am aware that I have squandered opportunity after opportunity that You have so graciously given me. I fail You daily. I often choose comfort over duty and readily give in to temptation. I pretend not to hear Your voice when You warn me not to make the bad choices that my flesh beguiles me to make.
Lord, You know better than I how weak, self-indulgent, how lacking in self-control, how I am constantly making excuses for not doing the things I ought and instead doing the things I ought not. I know You pity me. I know You are aware of how foolish I am, and if You did not reach out and drag me from the mire and carry me on Your shoulders back to the fold and to safety, I would be lost forever.
Stay with me, Beloved of my soul, until the hour when You will come to take me home lest I be lost forever.
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
‘What sort of servant, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their food at the proper time? Happy that servant if his master’s arrival finds him at this employment. I tell you solemnly, he will place him over everything he owns. But as for the dishonest servant who says to himself, “My master is taking his time,” and sets about beating his fellow servants and eating and drinking with drunkards, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.’
Thank you for the “wake up call” between the lines” 🙏
ReplyDeletePrayers and tears of a mother are never lost and will bear fruit in His time.