Oct 9, 2011 - 28th Sun of OT - Learning to Live Prepared For All Seasons

Readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100911.cfm

In our Sunday Liturgies, we follow a three year cycle, which means that every three years the Readings that we hear on a given Sunday repeat.  However, it has long fascinated me that each time we come to the same readings – three years later – we hear them differently.

The Reading that struck me this Sunday is the second Reading where St. Paul writes to the Philippians:

Brothers and sisters:
I know how to live in humble circumstances;
I know also how to live with abundance.
In every circumstance and in all things
I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry,
of living in abundance and of being in need.
And it struck me because 3-4 years ago, we were living in a very different time.  Then things were looking up, or just beginning to look down.  Today, three years after entering into the Great Recession, many of our lives are very different.  We’ve come to have to learn to live with less and to perhaps better appreciate what we have.

And yet the reading also speaks a second truth -- that things will eventually get better.  We may have perhaps taken for granted past prosperity but perhaps the difficulties that we live in now will not last forever either.  That things will improve again.

Indeed, the first Reading, coming from the Prophet Isaiah reminds us that ultimately everything will turn out okay.  Isaiah proclaims to the Israelites:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
...
On this mountain he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations;
he will destroy death forever.
The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken
No matter what our difficulties may be, financial, personal, with regard to health, etc, everything will ultimately turn out well.

However, we are also reminded then in the Gospel Reading that we do have to choose to accept God’s promise and yes, to be prepared as the case of the man in the parable that we heard today who perhaps suddenly was invited to the King’s banquet but found himself woefully unprepared.

How prepared are we?  Can we learn what St. Paul is writing about in his letter today – to be prepared to live in good times and in bad, in times of plenty and in times of need?  What do we need to do to be prepared to meet God, when we are told in fact, that all will come out well?

That then is both the Good News and the challenge for us today.