“There is always a perfectly good excuse, always a reason not to. The hardest freedom to win is the freedom from one's excuses.”

Oftentimes excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

 - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John

Gospel Text: (LK 9:57-62)

As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding
on their journey, someone said to him,
"I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus answered him,
"Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."
And to another he said, "Follow me."
But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father."
But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead.
But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God."
And another said, "I will follow you, Lord,
but first let me say farewell to my family at home."
Jesus answered him, "No one who sets a hand to the plow
and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."

The two most important moments of your life are now and the hour of your death. Likely we've known some who live as if death will never arrive, living only for "now". The spiritual goal is constantly to relate the two to each other: that is, now, and the hour of your death. The world around us, especially schools that want to churn out what they call "achievers", encourages us instead to relate every now to goals that we plan for: goals to be realized next week, or next month, or next year, or when we retire. Those are short-sighted if they're not set within the larger context of one's death.

In fact, everything we do now, or don't do now, bears on that hour of our death. By everything we do or don't do, we choose whether to follow Jesus.
If you are firmly resolved to prepare your self for the hour of your death, you will be firmly resolved in the "now" of every moment to follow what God is calling you to do. Here we have to be mindful of the way in which God dwells in the present moment. The need of a human person in the here and now often upsets our well-laid plans. Yet Jesus often presents Himself to us in the present moment in the guise of those in need.

In other words, God's will is the thread that links the pearls of each now throughout your life, and of the hour of your death. They are pearls of great price.