Saturday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, December 2, 2023

Luke 21, 34-36

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”

The Lord Jesus continues to teach his Apostles about preparing for the life to come, whether at the end of our lives on earth or st the end of the world.

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”  The Greek word translated here as “drowsy” actually means burdened: Beware that your hearts be not burdened from carousing, etc.  The Lord’s burden is light because he shares its weight with us (cf. Matthew 11, 30) and because we carry it out of love for him as well as out of joy that he gives us his burden, for it is a gift of love that allows us to be yoke-mates with our Lord.  “Carousing”, meaning re specifically, “drunken carousing” and drunkenness burden the heart because by going in for this we evade or reject our responsibilities and build up the heap of sin which threatens to bury us alive on this earth.  Preoccupation with the anxieties of life also burdens the heart so that we do not pay attention to to what is necessary for our spiritual lives.  Though the Greek word does not mean “drowsy”, the burdening of our hearts with the things the Lord warns us about brings about an effect similar to that of drowsiness, for we lose consciousness in a certain way.  The Lord reminds of elsewhere of becoming “sleepy” or “drowsy” in regards to our faith and practicing the virtues, especially in Matthew 25, 1-13, The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.  Likewise, St. Paul in Galileans 6, 9: “And in doing good, let us not grow weary. For in due time we shall reap, if we are not weary.”  Again, in 1 Thessalonians 5, 6: “Let us not sleep, as others do: but let us watch, and be sober.”  The Wisdom books are full of warnings against weariness, as in Proverbs 20, 13: “Love not sleep, lest poverty oppress you: open your eyes, and be filled with bread”.   That is, Do not become accustomed to putting your attention on the things of this world to the detriment of the things of the spirit: work and pray and you shall eat the Bread of Life.  “And that day catch you by surprise like a trap.”  If we sleepwalk through our lives paying attention to freaks that fade quickly and not to the spiritual dangers which lie all about us, we will suddenly be confronted with the need to give an account of our actions to Almighty God: “This night your soul will be demanded of you” (Luke 12, 19).

“For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.”  Even the just will experience the arrival of the Lord on the clouds of heaven as shocking and abrupt.  “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”  The tribulations of which the Lord Jesus speaks here are to be understood as the day of one’s death, the fall of Jerusalem, and the end of the world.  We can also look at these words in another way, as pertaining to the Lord’s arrival at that time, for “suddenly presently the Lord, whom you seek . . . shall come to his Temple” (Malachi 3, 1).  The tribulations of which the Lord speaks then can be seen as his Passion and Death, only after which will many people believe.

It is very necessary for us to prepare ourselves every day for meeting the Lord in whatever form that may take, and to be doing his work at the time he comes.