October 20, 2020

Lk 12: 35-38

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.

Waiting for God

“Get Ready,” crooned Eddie Kendricks, the falsetto of the Temptations’, “here I come.”

Jesus’ instruction in today’s Gospel is a reference to the Passover meal, which Jews were to eat with “your loins girded, sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand,” (Exodus 12:11). Jews also were to “light their lamps” in hopeful expectation for the Messiah, who was believed to be coming one day at midnight. Jesus is urgently telling his listeners, “Get ready!” 

While Jesus doesn’t tell us when he will come, he does show us how to wait: in joyful hope. Like the servant, we believers are to work diligently building God’s kingdom on earth, secure in the knowledge that one day we will be with God.  One model for us in cultivating this disposition is Jesuit Brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, a doorman who exclaimed every time someone rang the bell, “I’m coming, Lord!”

—Dan Dixon, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, CA.  

Prayer

O God, in the faithful service of our brother Alphonsus, You have shown us the way to joy and peace. Make us ready and watchful companions of Jesus, who became the servant of all, and now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

—Prayer for the Feast of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, SJ