ARE YOU AWAKE?

⏰Thursday of the Twenty-First Week of Ordinary Time 2 (30 August 2018)

📖1 Cor 1:1-9; Ps 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7 (R.v.1b); Matt 24:42-51

🎤ARE YOU AWAKE

Again, I have been battling with sleep for some time now in order to make this reflection. It has not been easy but, maybe, God uses it to make me understand what he proposes in the eschatological discourses of Jesus. If I bow to sleep now, I may not finish this on time. So I need to be awake.

Can you see? That is a battle between what I want and the good I ought to accomplish. This happens in us on daily basis. It was the problem of the Corinthians when Paul went there to establish the Church. Corinth was a wealthy polytheistic city, with several idol temples and bedeviled with temple prostitution. St Paul would first encourage the converts by reminding them of God’s eternal values in them (cf. 1 Cor 1:1-9), after which he would begin to catechize them on the need to opt for virtues against vices.

Where do we find our happiness? Is it in God or in amorous things? We must not forget that our true happiness is in heaven.

We can only get there if we are found ready, waiting for the Son of Man when he comes again (Matt 24:42-51). A popular Biafran tantra says, “To be eternally free is to be eternally vigilant.” Are we being vigilant in the things that would take us to eternal happiness?

May God keep us away from worldly distractions and lures that keep us from being entirely awake to the things of eternal life. Amen.

Have a happy day spent in the presence of God. Peace be with you.