Be Vigilant

It's kind of shocking to read this Gospel passage, "Stay awake!. For you do not know the hour your Lord will come," (Mt 23:42) on this lovely last day of August.  We might be mourning the winding down of summer, but we are not thinking about the unexpected end of our lives, yet the reality is that "at an hour we do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Mt 24: 44).
Such was the case on August 31, 1982, when John Leary a 24-year old recent Harvard graduate dropped dead while jogging on the streets of Cambridge. Totally unexpected.  A man in apparent good health, a regular jogger, not even at the prime of his life.  But it was a life of faith, service to the causes of peace and justice, and care of the poor...he even housed street people in his own apartment. He was a man "whose goodness was so powerful and honesty unlike anyone I've ever met," said Sister Evelyn Ronan, a chaplain at Harvard at the time.  According to Reverend Peter Gomes of Harvard, "The difference with John was that he discovered that life had no purpose, no meaning, no direction, and no focus apart from the purpose and focus of God...He became in his short life the complete and total man for others, and those who knew him and loved him testify to the love of Christ that shone in and through him." (All Saints, Robert Ellsberg, p. 376).  Evidently John was READY for the coming of Jesus.  May we discover what he did and live accordingly so that we too might be READY.
Bro. Rene