Jesus said to his disciples: “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
There is no mistaking what Jesus tells his disciples. Stay awake! At an hour you least expect, the Lord will come, and your life on earth will be over. The parable of the faithful and prudent servant and the wicked servant present an either/or scenario: you are ready for the Son of M
.an or unprepared for his coming. What makes the faithful servant faithful in the parable is the care of God’s gifts: the household and people in his household; and what makes the wicked servant wicked is his abuse of those gifts.
I want to understand, Lord, that I have these two options before me every day: to be faithful or to be wicked, to choose good or evil. How often, day after day, do I dismiss the either/or fallacy and believe myself to be somewhere in between in a gray area that is neither good nor evil? And then there are decisions that seem to have no bearing on whether I am prepared for your coming: which path I take for a walk, the way I slice carrots for dinner, how I grasp the steering wheel. But I think you mean, Lord, be watchful for you in my day in everything I do, whether inconsequential or necessary. Do I, will I, long for you during the day as in the Song of Songs? “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.”
Lord, thank you for the gifts you give to me today. On your return to me throughout the day through my thoughts and prayers and actions, find me doing your will and caring for my household and its abundant gifts and blessings. I will forget you during the day, not deliberately, but in the forgetfulness of daily life. Stay with me then and give me the grace to welcome you when I see as if from a distance that your return is near. Help me prepare for you; help me stay awake!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.