A Stark Warning

 

Luke 17: 26-37

Stay Alert

26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] 

37 “Where, Lord?” they asked. "Where the dead body is, there also the vultures will gather.”

These sobering sayings set the tone for the closing of the liturgical year. Little by little we are facing the "end times" and the consequent adjustments we need to make in our lives. There is an urgency and a seriousness that impel us to cast away the frivolous and focus on the serious, to hold on to what nourishes our spiritual lives and free ourselves from what holds us back from a deeper union with Jesus. As Shakespeare put it, "the readiness is all." Even in these "pre-Advent days, let us start cleaning  up the obvious messes we have allowed to accumulate and shake the unnecessary clutter from our lives.

Bro. Rene

Dear God, help me "clean my house" from all that separates me from you. Amen.