“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

“At the Day of Judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done.” ― Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Gospel Text: (MT 7:21, 24-27)

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

"Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
And it collapsed and was completely ruined."

Most of us would say without hesitation that describing the Lord as “an eternal Rock” is a metaphor. This metaphor tells us how solid, sturdy and dependable God always is. That’s a pretty simple and straightforward idea. Jesus in today’s Gospel uses the same metaphor in a little different way. In the way that Jesus tweaks this metaphor, He gives us a good Advent reflection.

Jesus says: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them[…] will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” In Jesus’ comparison here, what does the image of the “rock” stand for? Jesus Himself answered that “the one who does the will of my Father” “will enter… heaven”. It’s “the will of [God the] Father” that is the “rock” on which the wise man builds. God’s holy Will, in other words, is rock-solid. So we might reflect today on Jesus’ words as an encouragement to ourselves to be more like Him: that is, to be dependable in our decisions, and unwavering in the midst of influences that tempt us to take the broad and easy path.