The Call to Be Found Faithful

08-10-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Albert

The Gospel is from St. Luke 12:32-48. In a few vivid and expressive similes, our Lord tells the disciples and through them, all the followers, how they should conduct their lives on earth so that they would always be found in God's friendship when their call to judgement comes. In answer to a question put to him by Peter, our Lord says that more will be expected of those who have received greater gifts from God than of those who received lesser gifts.

The Gospel is from St. Luke 12:32-48. In a few vivid and expressive similes, our Lord tells the disciples and through them, all the followers, how they should conduct their lives on earth so that they would always be found in God's friendship when their call to judgement comes. In answer to a question put to him by Peter, our Lord says that more will be expected of those who have received greater gifts from God than of those who received lesser gifts.

The teaching of our Lord should make us all sit up and take serious notice. He has taken us into his household. He has made us his 'little flock''. We are invited guests in His home, His church, rather than mere servants. He wants us today that we must always be busy about our vocation, about the reason why he invited us into His home. If we grasped clearly what that call of Christ means, what our Christian vocation is, we would hardly need today's warning. We are Christians, we are members of His church, for our own eternal good. God, through Christ's incarnation, has put us on the road to heaven. He is ever helping us on the way.

Today's warning is that our call to judgement will come on each one of us like a thief in the night, at a moment when we least expect it. This need not be a sudden death. of every thousand who die after long illnesses in the hospitals, there rarely is one who knows and admits he is about to die, so actually all deaths are sudden, that is, unexpected. However the unexpected death, which we are sure to get, need not to worry the ordinary good Christian. It is the unprepared, the unprovided death which must cause us anxiety. If need not, if when it comes, it finds us living in God's grace, living the ordinary Christian life, doing our daily tasks but doing them as part of our duty to God. We have to take an interest in the affairs of this world, but the interest must never exclude our eternal interest. Instead it can and must help us toward the one real interest that man has in this life, that is, to earn his eternal life.

Then, Jesus added, '' 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.'' in these beautiful words, Jesus tells us two things, First, those who persevere in their living faith, they are blessed. Secondly, faith and patience are regarded as spiritual virtues that are so great in the eyes of God that as a reward to those who possess these qualities, Jesus will sit down with them, serve them and eat with them.

Let us take a few moments to review our personal faith and patience. Let us ask ourselves if we enjoy the fullness of these virtues. If we fall short of enjoying their fullness, let us ask God to bless us with these precious gifts so our purification may proceed according to His Divine Plan.