First Sunday of Advent
Last
Sunday I shared with you that I was hit on my way to a dentist appointment in
Williamston, and my car was beat up pretty bad. I was very blest that there was really no damage to my
person, and I was able to walk away from the crash; and, after making sure
there were no injuries at the ER of Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, I have been
pain free since last Monday. What
I didn’t share then is that I had called Shelly in our office (handsfree to be
safe!) just to check on a couple of things on my way to the dentist’s office,
and Shelly told me, “Drive safely!”
For whatever reason, after hanging-up, I remember thinking: ‘If I died
in a car crash today, at least the last thing I would have done was say Mass
[at 8 a.m.].’ But then I remember
thinking that I shouldn’t be so melodramatic.
Obviously
I didn’t die! But since then, not
having a scratch on me, and seeing the way the front end of the car looked, my
mind has often returned to how different things could have been for me. In a similar set of circumstances, I’m
sure there are people who have not been able to crawl over to the passenger
side of the vehicle and climb out.
I’m sure that many people have had broken noses and bruising on their
faces. But I am not one of
them. I escaped from that
traumatic event with a small scrape on below my knee and a sore neck for two
days; in essence, no real pain or trauma.
But
when I saw this Gospel passage, and read Jesus saying, “‘Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.’” it certainly hit
me differently this year than it has before. If just a few of the details of the crash would have been
different, I might have been buried from my first assignment as the sole
priest.
I
could also connect with the first reading from Isaiah: “Would that you might
meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! […W]e are sinful; all of us have become
like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags.” What a joy it would have been to know
that the last thing I did was provide Jesus to His people! What a comfort to know that, for all my
sins, my last deed was uniting people to the Blood of Jesus which cleanses us
from sin and death! Maybe it will
still be that way. Priests often
hope that the last thing they do on earth is celebrating a sacrament with
people, what we in the trade refer to as “dying with our boots on.” But, as the Prophet Isaiah reminds us,
even our good deeds are not enough.
Nothing we can do can earn our way into heaven. It is Christ who welcomes us into
heaven, if we have followed Him to the best of our ability as disciples. And we know neither the day nor the
hour.
Staying
awake for a long time is hard.
Keeping our attention when it seems like we can slack off can sometimes
feel impossible. But that is what
the Lord calls us to. He calls us
to always be people ready for judgment.
He calls us to be “gatekeepers…on the watch.” My recent car episode has reminded me of that. And it leads me to ask a question to you
and me: what did you do before you came to Mass? If, God-forbid, you would have died on your way here this
morning, what would be the last thing that you did? Did you yell at your children or embrace them? Did words of love emanate from your
mouth or words of hate? Did you look
down on the homeless man walking along the street, or pray that he may find
shelter and a job?
One
of the posts on Facebook in response to the pictures of the car post-crash was
from the diocesan Master of Ceremonies, Deacon Tom Fogle. He wrote, “God has more plans for you
if you were able to walk away from this without injury.” Maybe Deacon Tom just wants me to help
him more around the diocese with Masses the Bishop celebrates. But God does have a plan for my
life. And He has a plan for your
life. And the only person who can
really mess with that plan is me; is you.
We are the only ones who can derail that purpose for which God put us on
the earth, no matter whether that plan was for a short time, like the sad
situation when a child dies in the womb, or whether that plan was for 80
years. Not even the devil himself
can truly stop the plan of God in our life as long as we are willing to
cooperate with God. Bl. John Henry
Cardinal Newman put it this way:
God
has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed
to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I
shall be told it in the next. I am
a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
He has
not created me for naught. I shall
do good; I shall do His work.
I
shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not
intending it if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore,
I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may
serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve
Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my
spirit sink, hide my future from me.
Still, He knows what He is about.
We
may not know what God has specifically intended for us. But we know we are called to follow Him
in all things. We also know that
our time is short, especially compared to eternity. Jesus was not melodramatic. So may we take seriously the serious words of Jesus: “‘Be
watchful! Be alert!’”
