Friday- 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Luke 17-26-37

Ready or Not

Holding Hands

Let’s face it!  We are never really prepared for ‘endings’.  Our loved one may be hospitalized for weeks, even months.  We visit them every day, spend time with them, hold their hand and comfort them.  And yet that one morning, we walk in like normal, and we find that they have quietly left us!  And it feels so sudden, so unexpected, so heart-breaking!  We wish we had one more hug, one more word of affection, one more “I love you” or “thank you”, one more day just to be together!  We are never really prepared!  We are never really ready for endings!

And yet that is exactly the harsh reality, the stark image that today’s Gospel offers us of the Second Coming!  Whether it’s on the roof top or in the field or in the house, one will be taken and one will be left behind.  “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”

It is a reminder for us to not lose sight of the next life.  Not to obsess over earthly possessions and human concerns (and we certainly have plenty of those to stress over) and forget about the Creator behind it all.  Keep the faith!  Remain hopeful!  Keep your spiritual priorities!  We hear that same message in today’s Responsorial Psalm and the Alleluia verse– “Not a word nor a discourse whose voice is not heard.”  “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. God hears us, particularly in moments of pain and loss.   

Maybe Gandalf, in Lord of the Rings, said it best!  “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

We do not know the day or the hour.  All we can do is keep the faith, remain hopeful, and live a life of love for those around us.  And through it all, we pray for the wisdom to see God at work in the world

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