In our reading from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians we are reading from the first piece of NT writing – only 23 years after the first Pentecost. The crisis the early church was facing was a test of faith in the second coming of the Lord Jesus. People were dying; the day of the Lord had not yet come; how can we go on believing in this? Today’s selection from chapter 5 deals directly with the day of the Lord, that is, that day when the Lord will return in glory and in judgment, also known as the end of the world.
Sleepwalking through life. That’s what some of us do. We’re not asleep as in slumber, but asleep to the presence of God in our lives, unaware, oblivious to God’s grace.
Suppose you learned from your doctor that you had about a month left to live. And suppose you learned that just now. Would we see things differently? Do you think we’d let go of some things that right now preoccupy our minds?
Do you think we’d want to settle some old fights by forgiving people who perpetrated some severe injustices upon us?
Do you think we might want to make sure we are right with the Lord? Do you think, if we only had 30 days left to live, we’d keep doing what are known as deeds of darkness?
Do you think we might take more time to be with those we most love? Do you think we’d be so very busy about things that don’t ultimately matter?
Well, Paul is telling us to live as if the end were very near. Live in such a way that you will be ready for the Lord when He comes because the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
We are to be children of the light and children of the day.
I once heard that a grandmother would tell her grandchildren, “Nothing good happens after 2 AM!” Why? Because that’s when deeds of darkness happen, deeds that we wind up being ashamed of. One can also do deeds of darkness in the daytime, so Paul says: stay alert, and be sober, be aware, don’t sleepwalk through life, don’t relax on knowing what is good and what is bad. And when we do what is wrong, repent, and go to confession.
How can we know what is good and what is bad? Our informed conscience will tell us. If we have interiorized our Catholic faith, if we have sincerely desired to know the Lord and serve him and do His will, then He will speak to us in the inner recesses of our conscience.
We can kill our conscience, you know. Yes, we can stifle the Lord’s voice within by choosing again and again to ignore what our deepest, truest self is telling us about right and wrong. We can be like that “wicked, lazy servant” who went off out of fear and ignored the Lord’s call to use his talents. Instead he buried that inner voice from within.
An example from our first reading: suppose you are a married man and you go day after day without letting your wife know what an unfailing treasure she is to you. Don’t you think that if you knew that day of the Lord was right around the corner, that you’d tell her again and again how important she is to you, how much you love her, how she is God’s best gift to you?
Why wait until your deathbed? Why wait until it’s almost too late?
And for the rest of us, why put off doing the good we know we are called to? Live as if it were all about to come to an end. Living as if the day of the Lord were very near makes life so precious, so full of extraordinary gifts, so pregnant with possibilities, so much to be aware of. And, yes, so much to confess.
Remember, in the Gospel, it is the fearful man, the fellow who thinks he has not been given enough talents, who wastes what he has been given and winds up seeing God as demanding and harsh, harvesting where he did not plant, and gathering where he did not gather. Now, that is truly living in the darkness!
Instead, live as children of the light, believe that you are blessed! Because you are!