Daily Gospel Reflection

Be Prepared

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant where we're exploring the genius of Catholicism, the genius of Jesus, the genius of the gospels, and each day looking for a word or a phrase or an idea from the gospel to anchor our day, to go out into the world with our day anchored in the gospel. Today's reading is from Matthew's Gospel, 24:36-44. But on that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days, before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. And they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field, one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one is taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. He's coming when you're not ready. Nobody knows when He's coming. What's the word, the phrase, the idea? It's Tuesday of Holy Week. Jesus is going back to Jerusalem, He's speaking to the people, and His main theme today is a theme of preparedness. It's be prepared, be watchful, are you ready.

Now I saw this, I think, a bumper sticker recently which essentially said like, "When is the best time to start building the ark?" And then it said, "Before it starts raining." And I think that, in anything, we can have a prepared mindset and we can have an unprepared mindset. We can have a watchful mindset, being aware of what's happening within us and around us, or we can be oblivious and unaware. And Jesus' theme today is one of preparedness, and the line that jumps out at me is, "Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day the Lord is coming." Think about how much time, effort, energy has been put in to try and work out when is the Second Coming coming since Jesus was first on Earth. You're constantly seeing new books released about this, new articles written about this, scholars arguing about it. What do we know? Well, we know that Paul said it was near at hand, and that was 2,000 years ago, and so all we can do is speculate. But while we are speculating, what we are not doing is what we should be doing, and that is preparing. Because if you're ready, it doesn't matter when he comes. If you're ready, it doesn't matter when he comes.

So this week, we go into Holy Week, we do start to think about the four last things. Death, we're all going to die. Judgment, we're all going to be judged. Heaven, hell. These things are real. Sometimes they like to push it aside because we are busy working, we are busy partying, we are busy marrying, we are busy doing all of the things that we call life. It's time to be busy being prepared. It's time to be busy getting prepared. Have an amazing day. Remember, don't just be yourself. Be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be. One thing I did want to mention is, for the first time now, we're releasing a video every day based on the Daily Gospel. And so Lent will finish and we have this Holy Week experience, and usually our Best Lent Ever videos would end this Sunday on Easter Sunday. But every day, the rest of the year, you're welcome to come back and enjoy this experience of looking at the daily gospel just for a word or a phrase or an idea to anchor our days. I hope you'll enjoy that, take advantage of that, and share that with your family and friends.