Tomorrow or Today?

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Are you a procrastinator? Is it your habit to put off until another time what could be done today? Think of the tragic story of some of the recent victims of hurricanes. In New Orleans repairs to the levy were delayed year after year. In Florida some residents delayed their evacuation because the hurricane wasn’t that intense and when the hurricane gained strength the roads were blocked and it was too late to leave.

Physician and evolutionist Thomas Hurley (Technical Education, 1881) insisted that the “most valuable result of all education and training is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned, yet, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson he learns thoroughly”. Too many people relegate the day of reckoning to the far-off future; they think that for now we can forget about the accounting we will be expected to render at the end of time.

Sometimes, some of us are shaken out of what has become a habit of procrastination by a struggle that befalls us or someone dear to us. Cancer strikes, or Alzheimer’s or a stroke or a heat attack, and all of a sudden priorities shift, perspective sharpens and things long put off begin to get done. Suddenly time has become a precious commodity and no longer something to waste. But rather than wait for some hardship or tragedy to set our spiritual gears in motion, the church, in its wisdom, offers us an annual jolt.

Paul, in his correspondence with the Thessalonians (2nd reading, 1 Thess 4:13-18), reminds his readers that our readiness should be characterized by hope and mutual consolation. We need not worry unduly as some of Paul’s Greek converts tended to do. Authentic faith and a vital hope should preclude such a misuse of time, energy and emotion; better to be given over to seeking and being found by wisdom (1st reading, Wis 6:12-16). Those who find her find God; those who find God find themselves free from care, full of hope and prepared for all the knowns and unknowns of life.

With Paul and the author of Wisdom to inspire us, let us learn once again the lesson of the bridesmaids. (Gospel, Mt 25:1-13). Instead of procrastinating and finding ourselves unready to welcome the returning Jesus, let us live prepared to meet him anytime, anywhere and in whatever manner of encounter he may choose.