Gospel – Luke 12:35-40

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have the servants recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.
Be sure of this:
if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming,
he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”

Reflection on the Gospel

Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.

As teachers and as students, we have grown accustomed to deadlines.  For those of us who are procrastinators, these words of Jesus strike close to home.  We are ready and willing to put in the work when we know it is expected.  Yet when we look at our ministry to the young people entrusted to us, we find the works of Jesus in today’s Gospel to ring true.  We always need to be prepared to encounter Christ in the young people we work with.  We never know the impact even an informal encounter with our students might have.  Our opportunities to show witness to Christ’s love in our ministries are endless.  Having worked in a number of different LaSallian ministries over the past 15 years, I have had the chance to reconnect with a number of former students.  What they remember most about their time in school has less to do with any specific lesson they learned and more to do with the way their teachers cared for them and wanted them to succeed.  So keep working on planning quality experiences for the youth you work with, but also remember to stop and listen to them when the unscheduled moment occurs.  It is these moments of caring that will be remembered and learned from as the young people mature into adulthood.

Mr. Richard Ward
Ocean Tides – Narragansett, RI

Saint John Baptist de La Salle – Pray for us.
Live, Jesus, in our hearts – Forever.