_{Holy Spirit Catholic Church}

_{Homilies
Archive}

_{Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 12, 2007}

There's a great little book called "Life Spans or How Long Things Last."  In it you discover some very interesting facts.  For example, you discover that the average life of baseball cleats worn by your favorite major league star is only two months.  Like hockey?  The average life of a hockey stick used by your favorite NHL player is only two games.  In this neat little book you also discover that the average life of a soldier’s boots in peacetime is fifteen months, while in wartime it drops to only three months.

While the life spans of certain things are shorter than we might think, the life spans of other things are quite long.  For example, a Coke can or beer can left behind by someone out camping will still be there 80 years from now.  And a leather hiking boot left behind at the same campsite will be there 50 years from now.  The average rock protruding from the ground will still be at the campsite a thousand years from now.

But whatever it is…baseball cleats, a hockey stick, a Coke can, or a rock…you can be assured that it will eventually disappear.  For nothing lasts forever.  And what is true of baseball cleats, hockey sticks, Coke cans, and rocks is also true of human beings.

We too will eventually disappear.  None of us will last forever.  And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes in today's Gospel.  That's why he warns us:  Light your lamps… You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

Although Jesus is referring here to his Second Coming, our great theologians assure us that his words may be taken in two senses. 

In the narrow sense they refer to the end of the world.  In the wider sense, however, they refer to the end of our life.  And it is for the end of our life, our death, that we must be especially prepared.  All we know is that it will occur.  We will not live forever.

Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, died just before World War II.  Freud had a favorite story that touches on the point of preparedness.

The story concerns a sailor who was shipwrecked and washed ashore on a South Pacific island.  He was greeted enthusiastically by the island natives.  They clapped and sang, hoisted him on their shoulders, carried him to their village, and sat him on a golden throne.  Little by little, the sailor learned what was going on.

The islanders had a custom of occasionally making a man king for a year.  During his kingship he could order his subjects to do anything within reason, and they would obey him without question.  The sailor was delighted that he had been chosen to be the king.  He couldn't believe his good fortune.

Then one day he began to wonder what happened to a king when his year of kingship ended.  That's when his excitement and enthusiasm came to an abrupt end.  He discovered at the end of his kingship, he would be banished to a barren island, called King’s Island.  There he would be left to starve to death as a sacrifice to the gods.

After the sailor recovered from his shock, he slowly began to put together a plan.  As king, he ordered the carpenters of the island to build a fleet of small boats.  When the boats were ready, he ordered the farmers of the island to dig up fruit trees and plants, put them in the boats, and transplant them on King's Island.

Finally, he ordered the stone masons to build a house on King's Island.  In this way, the sailor prepared carefully for the day when his kingship would end and he would be banished to King's Island.

That story makes a good illustration of what Jesus is telling us in today's Gospel.  In the words of Jesus, elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke, he is telling us to "provide an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy." (Lk 12:33)  He's telling us to do what the shipwrecked sailor did.

Today's Gospel invites us to ask ourselves how well we are preparing ourselves for that day when, like the sailor in the story, our life on this planet will come to an end.  It invites us to ask ourselves, "If we were to die tonight, how ready would we be to face God?"

And if our answer to that question leaves something to be desired, then we can be sure that Jesus is speaking to us in a special way through today's Gospel.  He is saying, "Be like servants who await their master's return… You must also be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

BE PREPARED is the great teaching of our faith, referred to in today's Gospel.  This is why we have gathered together for this liturgy.  It is to recall and celebrate the fact that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.