Be Prepared at all Times

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HOMILY FOR THURSDAY OF TWENTY FIRST WEEK IN THE ORDINARY TIME YEAR C,
BY REV FR EKESHIRI JUDE EMEKA CSSP.
Thessalonians 3:7-13, Psalm 89:3-4,12-14,17, Matthew 24:42-51

Beloved, today we celebrate the memorial of a great saint Augustine. A saint whom I really admire so much because of his zeal and contribution to the life of the Church. A saint who did not allow his past life of sin to overcome his future life of grace. We celebrate Saint Augustine, a man who is imperfect and a sinner, but turned his imperfections into perfection.

He strived very hard in Search for God for a very long time, until he found God. He did not give up on the search for God. He said, “o God, our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” He was converted reading the Scripture and the prayers of his mother saint Monica. Now we celebrate this sinner who is now a great saint in heaven. We are like saint Augustine: Our lives are not perfect and we continue to search for God, for truth and for grace.

However, the gospel of today, tells us about preparedness and being ready to wait for the coming of the master. It says, “Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:42-51). Jesus is also telling us that it is easy to fall asleep, spiritually speaking. So are we more often awake and attentive to His presence? Or are we most often asleep and therefore unaware of His presence?

None of us knows how long we shall live in this world until we shall meet the final judgement of God. This should make us realize that we need to be always ready to meet the Lord, to have our actions true, and our conscience always clear. We need to be living as if each day were our last, as if our eternal happiness depended on the choices and actions of this very day. Every moment is precious and important in God’s eyes, and the one necessary thing is working to attain our salvation.

This is more important than anything else we can accomplish in life. Often it can seem that God is distant and not involved in our lives. It can seem that He is not coming back anytime soon, and this can lead us to become distracted with many other things. Every day we need to renew our spirit of faith in God and his constant presence, living each day to please him, no matter how long the delay seems to be.

We know about the life of Saint Augustine from his writings called the confession of Saint Augustine and the city of God. Saint Augustine is not perfect but he did not end his life in sin but struggled to find God. In his early life, he was way ward, making many mistakes as a young man, but when he found God, he used his new knowledge about God to convert many people to God.

Saint Augustine never rested until he discovers the truth about God. Many of us are in search of God, but we give up too soon. God does not abandon us because of our sins. He continues to wait for us like Augustine until we return back to him. He gives us more opportunities to search for Him and return back to His love.

Again, the greatest motivation of Saint Augustine, was his mother, saint Monica. A woman of great faith and perseverance. She did not give up on her son waywardness but continues to pray for him. How many of you parents could be like Saint Monica. She cried to God begging God not to let her son be lost, but to live his life in God. From then on, Saint Augustine stays awake in God. He prepares himself to be true witness to God’s love. We too need to stay awake and be prepared about our lives.

How is this staying awake accomplished? How do we become attentive to God as He speaks to us and guides us every moment of every day? It is done by forming a spiritual habit of ongoing prayer. We begin by setting aside time for prayer every day, time in which all we do is pray. We set aside all distractions and begin by offering prayers, meditating upon scripture, attending the Mass, speaking from our hearts, etc. But from there, this special time of prayer, set aside exclusively for God, must begin to have an effect upon us throughout the day.

And when we get distracted by the things of the world, we stop again, focus exclusively on God, and invite Him to be with us yet again. And then this is done again, and again, and again. Prayer must become a consuming habit by which God becomes present to everything we do.

Like saint Augustine, we should not allow the mistake we have made in the past to define our future of grace. If God has not condemn us, why do we condemn ourselves? Nobody should write us off, that we are lost. God’s grace should be enough for us like saint Paul and Saint Augustine. All we have to do, is to make an effort to rise and leave sin behind and accept the grace that God has given us. Then our lives will be full of, joy and fulfillment. Peace be with you.

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