Thursday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 25, 2022

Matthew 24, 42-51

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

As we draw near to the end of the Church year and to the Season of Advent, the Mass readings increasingly emphasize the end of time and the day of judgment.  Here, the Lord, in the few days before he suffered and died for us, teaches to to “Stay awake!”  or, more precisely, as in the Greek, “Keep vigilant!”, for it is not enough to stay awake if a person is not paying attention to what is going on around him.  The Lord wants his followers to stay ready because he will come like a thief on the night, when least expected.  The faithful follower of Christ also hears the Lord’s words as a call to keep watch for some act of service to perform.  In a busy restaurant, a server has to keep her eye on the tables in her station and to provide for her customers even before they ask for something.  She has to keep watch for when one of her tables is seated too so that these new customers are not kept waiting for menus and water.  Or, a back-up quarterback does not know when he may have to take over for the starter.  The starting quarterback may be completing his passes and look at the peak of his form, and the next moment he is injured and has to come off the field.  The back-up needs to start warming up the instant he realizes something may be wrong.  If his head is in the game and he has followed every play, and he has kept himself in shape throughout the season, he is able to go out and continue the drive.  This may even be his big break to start playing regularly.  The unprepared backup who is not paying attention will lose his chance, which may never come again.

“My master is long delayed.”  Two thousand years seems a long time to us, but it is hardly a blink of an eye in the history of the earth.  It seems a long time because we are impatient people.  Our impatience is demonstrated by a lack of knowledge of the past and of interest in the future.  But, as St. Peter reminds us, “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3, 8).  Peter further explains that the “delay” is only apparent: “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (2 Peter 3, 9).  The Lord patiently waits for his slowest sheep to catch up with the rest of the flock before closing their gate.  The Lord gives each person multiple opportunities throughout life to believe, to repent, and do penance.  If we read the Gospels carefully, we can see all the chances the Lord gives Judas to change his mind, including several during the course of the Last Supper.

Let us, then, make good use of whatever time left the Lord affords us on this earth so that we will not be caught unaware and unprepared but instead looking forward to the good things he has prepared for us.