Jesus said to his disciples,
There is no need to be afraid,
Little flock,
For it has pleased your father to give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions and give arms.
Get yourselves purses that do not wear out,
Treasure that will not fail you.
In heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it,
For where your treasure is,
There will your heart be also.
See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit.
Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast,
Ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks.
Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.
I tell you solemnly,
You will put on an apron,
Sit them down at the table and wait on them.
Maybe in the second watch he comes,
Or in the third.
But happy those servants if he finds them ready.
You may be quite sure of this,
That if the householder had known at what hour the burglar would come,
He would not have let anyone break through and the wall of the house.
You too must stand ready,
Because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Are you ready to die?
Silly question isn't it,
Because most of us don't really want to die.
But are you ready to die?
In the Gospel reading we see yet another beautiful,
Beautiful parable tale that Jesus shares with his disciples on being ready always.
Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.
Hopefully the rapture will happen when the sun goes around the earth and maybe God will keep Daylight Savings Time in mind so that we can all be awake when he comes and not be asleep.
Because it's natural to sleep.
But what does this truly mean for us?
When I read this passage what stood out is just a thought of the past 40 years basically.
Where I am becoming more and more aware of being stuck in the rat race.
Being stuck in surviving.
Being stuck in going to work.
Earning an income.
Doing this,
Doing this and surviving and keeping on living.
But not preparing for death.
And it's again it's not something that many of us are really ready to face or that we want to do because we are taught to fear death.
What a silly notion.
Death is natural.
Death comes.
In a chat we had earlier on on Inside Timer was also mentioned that we know that death is going to happen.
We just don't know when.
And in society today it is so interesting to notice that we are scared to prepare for death.
We are scared to keep death in mind.
This is one of the biggest lessons that you learn while becoming a monk.
Keep death always in mind.
So that we start reframing life.
So that when I wake up and I have an hour free I now know that this is an hour that I will never get back.
What am I going to do in this hour?
What am I going to do if this is the last hour I will ever have?
Watch cute kittens on tik-tok?
Maybe?
Is that your thing?
Personally if I have one hour I would want to be with my loved ones.
Hopefully in person.
If I knew I have just one hour left.
And that is the big lesson here is prepare for your death.
Prepare for maybe dying today.
One of my dear dear friends wakes up every morning.
She had a car crash years and years ago which.
.
.
Pure miracle!
She survived and every morning that she wakes up she wakes up with these words,
I'm back!
Grateful to be back.
Grateful to have another day to experience life.
I think that we are so scared of the unknown of what is going to happen after death that we just shove it in a corner.
It's not gonna go away.
I'm sorry it's not.
So what are we going to do with that?
I'm going to die.
Tough.
It's gonna happen.
Okay let's get over that.
Let's start focusing on being awake when the Christ comes again.
The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
So let us prepare for that moment and not by staying awake and drinking Red Bull or coffee but by living every moment trying.
Let's get out of the clouds and let's get here by trying to remember that every moment can be your last.
That every moment is an opportunity to choose to be in communion with God and yes it can be by watching a couple of cute kittens on tik-tok or on whatever channel you watch them but is that really going to fill my soul?
Is that really what I need?
Is that really going to help make this world a more compassionate place?
Maybe.
Maybe if I make the videos and I share that with people that might be something else because if I can bring laughter to somebody and if I can bring a smile to somebody.
Beautiful.
Bless you for that.
But we have become so caught up in being asleep,
In merely closing our eyes,
Our spiritual eyes and living because we have to survive and going into ego and getting stuck in survival mode,
In stepping on other people in order to get to the top and in getting the best of this,
Best of that,
That we forget that the master is coming,
Death is coming.
Yes.
Jesus overcame death.
Jesus overcame death and his generals.
So we know that we are going to wake up the resurrection of the body.
We know that we are going to wake up after going to our final sleep but what are we going to wake up to?
How much karma have we created?
How much time did we spend on this planet in compassion?
And no,
It's never too late to wake up.
You are awake now.
You are here now.
You can choose now to start living,
To start trying to live every moment in the knowledge that this moment may be your last and now the excuse of I didn't know doesn't count anymore.
I include myself by the way.
This is a beautiful lesson but it takes away the right to say I did not know.
So this week,
This lifetime,
Maybe it might be an idea to just try and be aware that the next hour might not be an hour where I will be breathing.
Sobering thought.
Beautiful thought.
Amen.
