HOW NOT TO MISS THE END

Last week we started our All Souls’ Masses for the whole of November. What better way to remember our beloved dead is put their NAMES in the ‘TREE OF LIFE’. Be mindful also that we are almost at the end of the Liturgical Year C and of the civic year 2016. The end will come and when it does, it comes unexpectedly.

For all of us and for all things around us, there will be an end. An end of beauty and allure. An end to happiness or grief. An end to relationship – even the most cherished ones. As Christians, aside from the end of our lives, we know that there will be also the end of the world. We expect it to happen one day, and then following it will be the renewal of all creation. This is part of our human condition and of Christian faith. It is in the Gospel of this Sunday.

Today people have become expert planners for the end, which we simply label “future”. We plan our retirement, our pensions, our hospitalization and our last will and testament. It is good that we have less fatalistic and have become more practical and ingenious when it comes to the future. Planning for the future is an unconscious, tacit way of planning the inevitable end of the things we now enjoy and possess. But the future is difficult to plan. While we know there is an end to everything, we don’t exactly know how or when it will occur. Our Lord Jesus warns us against soothsayers and false prophets who pretend to know the plan of God. In Jesus’ time, as today, there have so many mistaken prophecies, and false prophets who foretell the end. This is sinful because no fortune-teller, horoscope, or other ways of divining, has a final word regarding our destiny.

So as Christians, how do we look to the future?

Our Lord gives us the right attitudes. We must trust in Him even in the moments of difficulty because He will be close to us. We must be patient and persevering. St. Paul says ‘Work’! (2 Thess. 3:6ff) Yes, work to improve your lives. Work to help your families and other people. Work with love and whatever good it is you are doing, give your best. Both Jesus and his apostles Paul teach us that the best way to prepare for the future is through the PRESENT MOMENT.

Some are anxious about things to happen. Others are resigned to whatever fate has in store for them. Still others prefer to be mere spectators, dreamers and totally indifferent. But the Lord invites us to carve the future with our hands and with our present labors. Ultimately our goal is Heaven itself, which is the Lord’s invitation for all. If we are faithful disciples, working silently with love and devotion for God and others, we will taste the promises of the Lord. The end will still come as a surprise, for only the Father knows the day or the hour. But it comes, we will not miss it, for we have prepared for our future with God through our faithfulness to the present moment.

Key Concept: Stewardship. Who is a Christian steward? One who receives God’s gift gratefully, cherishes and tends them in a responsible and accountable manner, shares them in justice and love with others and returns with increase to the Lord.

In this 33rd Week in OT, we celebrate optional memorials of many saints, namely on the 15th St. Albert the Great, on the 16th two saints St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude, on the 17th the memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, on the 18th the Dedication of the Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul and on the 19th it is Our Lady on Saturday. We still pray for beloved dead till the end of November especially those written in the Book of Life and in the TREE OF LIFE. This is all for now, watch the next bulletin. God Bless!

Your Priest-Servant and Parochial Administrator,

Fr. Reggie