11.07.2020 Homily

During the month of November, the church invites us to reflect on our lives and that our lives have a purpose. They have a goal. They are going somewhere. And this month, the church takes us to the 25th chapter of St. Matthew's gospel. There are three stories in that 21st chapter about being awake and waiting and being aware that the Lord is coming. And then the last part of that 25th chapter is Matthew's description of the end of the world and the final judgment, when Jesus calls the nations of the world around him and separates them some on the right and some on the left, like a shepherd separates sheep from goats.

But the point is that the church is inviting us to take stock of the fact that there is more to life than just the here and now. That you and I are made for something beyond what we presently experience. That the fulfillment of what it is to be a human being is to be in union with God. And that as we pass from this way of living to another way of living, a non-physical way of living, we come into union with the living God.

That's our faith. That's our belief. And we're called to order our lives in such a way as to reflect that. So the church says through the scriptures, the moral of the story is stay awake, be alert, be aware, be ready, have things in order.

The older we get, the more immediate that seems. When I was a young person the end of life was not a thing I thought about at all. And the older I got, the clearer it became to me that life is limited. And all of us are called at one point or another, not today, but sometime you pass from this way of living into the presence of the living God. And I think the older we get, the more central that truth is to our lives. The more we reflect about the goal that is within human beings.

Well, every time we gather at the table of the Lord, what we celebrate is not only the mystery of Jesus dying and rising again, not only the mystery of his death and resurrection of 2000 years ago. We celebrate, we celebrate that final resurrection, that final coming to life, that final entrance into eternal life, that all of us are invited and encouraged and are destined to inherit. So as we pray today, we pray in gratitude for the gift that God has given us in leading us, in urging us, in calling us to be awake, to be aware, to be clear about what the real meaning of life is all about.