Be ready

In today’s Gospel (Luke 12:35-38), our Lord warns us to be vigilant.

Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants
who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately
when he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.

Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table,
and proceed to wait on them.

And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.

On one level, of course, he is warning us to be ready for his coming: either at the end of time or at the hour of our death (whichever comes first).

(May the Lord Jesus have mercy on us all.)

There is another level to this advice that we should also keep in mind.

Our Lord tells us to be ready for work (“gird your loins”), to be watchful (“light your lamps”), and to be “ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.”

Our Lord does not come and knock only at the hour of our death or at the end of the world. He also comes and knocks many times in our lives: moments when he wants us to do something, even if it is something relatively small.

Are we ready to respond? Are we watching? Are we ready to open ourselves to him? Are we ready to do his will, to share his love, and to proclaim his truth?

Are we always ready to respond to the Lord? Day or night?

And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.