Growing Careless
Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
It takes a lot of commitment to stick to your guns. The servant Jesus talked about didn’t have that stick-to-itiveness. He pressed his luck as he became more and more lax in his duties. He was like a man who is often late for work. Even though he is warned about his lateness, he is not immediately fired, and he begins to figure he can be late anytime he finds it convenient. But one day when he comes in two hours late the face of a scowling boss confronts him. He then realizes he went too far. He’s fired!
The servant in the parable figured his master would be away for a long time. Maybe he had taken advantage of his absence on other occasions, and since he had never been caught before, he became careless and went too far. You know what happened. He got caught goofing off, being drunk, and abusing the others. Too bad for him!
People have a tendency to think they will live forever, especially those of us who have already been living for about that long. Because we have managed to get through sicknesses, survived accidents, gotten out of trouble we got ourselves into, maybe we begin to think our lives are charmed. Nothing can ever hurt us. And we are tempted to grow lax - in our prayers, in our morals, in our commitment to God. We might still go through the motions of religion, but our thoughts and hearts are elsewhere. We live as if we will never die.
Jesus wants to remind us that someday we will. And only those who are “saint material” will enter heaven. Let us all become farsighted and faithful servants from now to eternity. Let us not mess up our chances for a heavenly future.
