What I’m Thinking: Ready for What Comes

Jesus stressed the need to be “awake” when the end of history comes. Awareness can be useful for other things, too: like appreciating the joys of life.

Here’s a transcript:

I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday this week. May God bless all your gatherings of family and loved ones. If you are at a distance from those you care about, well, then may modern technology do its best to bring you together for some smiles and some laughter.

My sympathy to all those who will be working on Thanksgiving, and to all those in retail who will face the crowds on Friday. May God be with you.

This Sunday begins a new year in the Church. It is the first Sunday in Advent, and our Scripture comes from late in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24:35-44). It is one of Jesus’ reflections on the end of time, on the coming of God’s great and glorious day.

Jesus’ message is fairly simple: we do not know when it is coming. He compares it with the flood of Noah, that everybody was just living their lives when the rains and the waters came. He uses the example of people doing their normal work from day to day, and one will be taken and the other one, he says, will be left behind.

Jesus, when he talks about the day of God always stresses preparedness, being awake.

This week, I would stress being awake and prepared for whatever comes. I suppose it might be the end of time and history, but it might also be an encounter with something wonderful, lovely. This is, after all, Thanksgiving week, and it’s time to reinforce those connections with those we love.

It might be something challenging, something noteworthy, something that calls you to stretch yourself in generosity, or in purposefulness, or in resilience.

The idea is to come into it as aware of your surroundings as you can be: as aware of the love as of the challenges, as aware of the grace as of the sorrows, as aware of the presence of God as you are of the presence of evil.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.