Fr Jeremiah Browne
I want to begin with a story told by Father John Shea about a former student in his twenties who made an appointment to meet with him. The young man had been diagnosed with incurable cancer.
When they met, the young man told Fr Shea, “I just wanted to thank you. Something you said in class years ago has helped me immensely to face my death. You said there are only two potential tragedies in life – and dying young was not one of them. The two tragedies are: going through life without ever having loved, and going through life without telling the people you love that you love them.”
Love is a kingdom value – that is what Christ sked us to do.
Then he said: “When the doctors told me my cancer was terminal, I began to think of all the people who love me and whom I love. I took time to tell each one what they meant to me. I have expressed my love. Now, when someone asks me, ‘How is it to be a twenty-four-year-old person who is dying?’ my response is this: It is better than being an eighty-year-old person who is dying but who has never loved.”
Life is unpredictable. Think of nine-eleven, when the planes were going into the twin towers? The people on those planes weren’t phoning their broker, they were phoning family and friends to tell them that they loved them.
We don’t know what a day will bring. We have all had mornings when we thought it would be an ordinary day, only to have something happen before evening that changed our lives – illness, sudden loss, unexpected joy. All these moments remind us that we never really know what the future brings – so all we can do is live in the now.
The people of Israel in our first reading (Wisdom 18:6-9) knew this truth. They were told to be ready on the night of the Passover – dressed for a journey, staff in hand – because God’s deliverance would come swiftly. They didn’t know the exact hour, but they trusted the promise and lived in expectation of what God would do.
Jesus takes that same image in the Gospel (Lk 12:32-48) and tells us to be dressed for action and have our lamps lit, like servants waiting for their master to return. In other words, he is reminding us that each of us has a mission, a purpose in life. Through our baptism we are asked to faithfully carry on the work of the Christ, to love as he loved, to build the kingdom, in whatever way we are called to do it.
Doing the work of Christ does not mean rushing about frantically. It means living deliberately. It means choosing the things that matter. It means being attentive to the people and needs right in front of us.
When we live with faithfulness to the Gospel in our hearts, we measure our days not by what we have consumed or accomplished for ourselves, but by how we have loved, how we have served, how we have made Christ visible to others.
Think about it! The early Church didn’t grow because people ran elaborate programmes or had huge resources. It grew because ordinary believers lived the gospel, they lived ready for the second coming. They lived as if Christ might return today. They forgave quickly. They welcomed strangers. They shared the Gospel naturally in their conversations. They cared for the poor. They didn’t waste time on the trivial.
What would our homes look like if we lived like that? What would our parish look like if we lived like that? What would our homes feel like if we spoke the words that matter instead of holding them back? How would the world’s perspective change if we could understand that time is short – but eternity is long?
This is our call: to be people who are busy with the work of the gospel, now. In other words to continue the mission of Christ, now. To love now. To serve now. To forgive now. When we do this, something extraordinary happens – our witness becomes contagious. Other people see that our Faith is not an ornament we take out for Sundays, but the fire that shapes our everyday choices.
So today, let us hear Jesus’ words not as a warning, but as an invitation:
Stand ready. Live today. Love ready.
Do the work God has placed in your heart. Don’t wait for a “better time” to be generous, to speak up for justice, to share your faith. Life is slipping by. Yet, every day is a gift. Every encounter is an opportunity. Every moment is a chance to prepare our hearts for the Lord.
So let us not delay the things that matter. Let us live each day as if it were our last – not in fear, but in love. And when the Master comes, and come he will, whether at dawn or midnight or in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, may he find us watching, ready, loving, and able to say with joy, “Here I am, Lord. I have done what You asked.”