The Psalm has a very simple statement in it, a request from us to God: “teach us to number our days aright.” What does that mean? We might call it the “bucket list” mentality in our world, yet that doesn’t do it justice. Because that mentality says, let’s make a list of all the things in this life we want to do before it’s too late. What the scriptures talk about today is precisely what Ordinary Time is about. Ordering life toward the end of time, to the end of our mortal existence. Counting. Knowing that the most important event is yet to come and that the true bucket-list should contain only one item: to live in a way that brings Glory to God and ends with an eternity in Heaven.
That’s what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel. He warns us in this parable that we don’t always have tomorrow; we aren’t even guaranteed the next few minutes. But, we know what we are supposed to be doing. Like the servants in the story, we know our responsibilities to God, the Church, and our families. Are we ready? The Master will come again; for some, it might be this morning and for others tomorrow. God willing for most of us, many, many years from now. But we just don’t know.
A friend of mine says: “get ready, be ready, stay ready.” That is not only good advice; this is what Jesus is saying to us today through the Scriptures in the Mass. In the Sacraments of the Church, we are offered the mercy and the grace to live a life of the good servant, reaching out to others and “feeding the food they need at the proper time.” The Eucharist is that food. This meal brings us to everlasting life, changing us to be more like Jesus each time we receive it worthily. So the question we are asked today is: “if God came right now, would He find me distributing His grace into the world? Would He see that I take that graces of the Eucharist into my home, into my family, into my social groups?”
So I say again: “Get ready. Be ready. Stay ready.”
A reflection on the readings for Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time: August 26, 2021