Wednesday February 27, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 13:1-5

It was just about this time that some people arrived and told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, 'Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than any others that this should have happened to them? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell, killing them all? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.' 

Reflection

How shall I live? As I grow older the question becomes more urgent.

What shall I do with my precious, unpredictable life? How shall I spend the irreplaceable resource of time, which is always shorter than we want it to be?

Two tragedies focused the attention of people who came to Jesus. One was an act of brutality, a murder, the other an accident that killed hapless victims. Both incidents prove the fragility and unpredictability of our lives. We never know what might happen.

Never, which gives urgency to every decision, every action, every day.

Each one must count for something, each must express the wonder of our particular lives, the graces we have to beautify and bless this world while we can, doing the will of the Grace who made and loves us. Time must not be lost.

This urgency seldom sets in on modern souls until sudden threat or evil happens.

We fill our lives with commitments and activities, little questioning: Which is best, which express our deepest convictions and faith, which would we do if we knew this was our last day on God’s good earth?

You can live for decades like this until something unexpected happens. Someone we love gets dangerously sick, our diagnosis is what we feared or an accident touches our lives.

Urgency then enters the mind, and we ask what we want our lives to be. We repent, finally seeing life as a precious and fragile gift that must not be wasted or taken for granted.

Each moment must be lived as much as possible from our depths that we might be and share whatever wonder and beauty, grace and care that is in us--being the soul that the Soul of Grace always knew we could be.

Such repentance of life need and must not wait the day when we realize life is not under our control. It starts today, every day.

We wake and receive one more day, a joyous gift of grace from the Soul of Grace who wants only that we should live, truly live.

Pr. David L. Miller