Friday of Week 32 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious
Wisdom 13:1-9 | Psalm 18(19):2-5 | Luke 17:26-37
As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed. (Luke 17:26-30)
Yesterday, Australia voted for same-sex marriage!
Actually, it was nothing of the sort, merely a survey by a government statistics department, and only 48% of the eligible Australian population actually said they were in favour.
Still, it was celebrated as a VICTORY FOR RIGHT-THINKING MAN against those irrational God-fearing stick-in-the-muds. Rainbow colours (the unofficial emblem of “gay pride”) and confetti were everywhere, while one MP lambasted the Aussie PM for prioritizing a meaningless gesture over drought, unemployment and crime.
I imagine a similar air of celebration and carousing confronted Noah just before the Flood, or Lot before Sodom and Gomorrah burned.
I imagine such too would greet the Son of Man when He comes again, and He would be sorely grieved if we were found in their midst, living it up like there was no tomorrow…or no God.
After all, so many of us have adopted a me-now-God-later attitude, and of course it’s always “now”.
We like to say “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but with God, it somehow degenerates to “out of sight, out of mind”.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Lately, I’ve been spending most evenings at the bedside of my dear friend Theresa Helen Broughton. I hesitate to call it her “deathbed”, but hope for her is now as dim as the light in her eyes.
Still, I pray with her and her family each night, gathering from far and near: perhaps the Chaplet of the Most Precious Blood, or perhaps the Divine Mercy Chaplet, or the rosary of the day, or whatever prayers come to mind.
We gather round her, sharing memories and our daily experiences. We laugh over silly things, critique the latest MRT breakdowns and other inexplicable decisions in the papers…and watch over her, assuring her out loud that we’ll each navigate this messy world as best we can, and urging her to run to Jesus when she sees Him.
And each night, we leave her side to head back to our respective domiciles and lives, at peace with God and the world.
At peace with God. It’s a good way to live, right up to the end.
Lord, teach us to fill our lives with more of Your loving presence, and less of the fleeting pleasures of this world. Amen.