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Turnaround

Procrastination

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


Today’s readings are all about repentance.

The message of the first reading is clear: A half-hearted living of the Christian life is the lowest form of nakedness, blindness, and poverty; this form of Christianity is a hell on earth that finds its fulfillment in eternity. We are called to wake up from mediocrity and attachment to worldliness and give our whole hearts to Christ and His people.

Marvelously, this is precisely what Zacchaeus does in the Gospel passage. Joy comes to his house as he reckless divests himself of all his ill-gotten gains and gives to the poor, his heart detached from his worldliness by the encounter with Christ’s merciful grace.

We are called to be causes of Zacchaeus events through our prayer for sinners and our witness of Christian life. And we have a short time to do it. There is no freedom experienced by the human person like the radical freedom experienced by the person liberated from worldly attachments.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask the Lord to help open your eyes to the opportunities in your life to bring souls closer to Him. Also, resolve with Him to offer all your Masses, prayers, and all the ample sufferings this life provides for the conversion of sinners.

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On Board for Launch

Space Shuttle

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


There is a rocket-like thrust in all of Scripture. Scripture is not a philosophy book about the nature of what is. It is a guide for a participation in a massive launch. A launch that takes us from time into eternity.

There is arguably no more prevalent theme in Jesus’ preaching than our eternal destiny: What favors it, and what puts it at risk. Today’s gospel follows this theme, essentially warning us not to be like servants who fall asleep on the job–getting cozy and comfy in our reality in time. But rather, always ready for eternity–always focusing what we do, think, love, and in fact, what we are, on that horizon. And he emphasizes something bracing and beautiful about the reality of entering eternity: It comes in a single, abrupt moment, like the Master knocking on the door upon His return.

This eternal horizon is the backdrop of St. Paul’s, well, congratulations, if you will, of the Ephesians–gentiles–for entering into the covenant of God’s people Thanks to the unifying, expansive saving act of Christ, the gentiles are no longer outsiders. They’re part of God’s “in” crowd.

Especially in today’s polarized political context, we may be accustomed to thinking about people in terms of “us” and “them,” not so differently from the way Israelites may have in the Old Testament. Against the horizon of eternity, it is not the will of the great Unifier, Jesus Christ, that any of the “them” should be lost.

If we are concerned for our own eternal destiny–and we should be, because it depends on the choices of our freedom–should we not be concerned for that of the “them”? How much time/energy do we spend praying and sacrificing for the eternal salvation of persons, perhaps especially those we may consider inimical to God’s saving message?

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Use your imagination and/or capacity for analysis to conjure a clear image of what you consider the “them” in your life. Place them in your heart on a paten, and offer them to Jesus Christ on the cross, asking Him, by His all-powerful sacrifice, to inject miraculous grace into their hearts so that they may discover and embrace Him.

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