The Son of Man will return…Like a flash!…….Are we ready to meet him?

Today at Holy Mass in the Gospel of St Luke Jesus tells his friends some shocking news…….“The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation”………How easily we forget that Jesus is going to come back…He may even come back today…Are we ready to meet him?…..Jesus told his 12 friends many things and for as much as he told them, most of it went right over their head…In many ways we are no different…The Son of Man will return…Like a flash!….Are we ready to meet him?…In the mean time, Jesus tells his buddies….“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you”…..Inside of each of us is the Kingdom of God…Sadly we are afraid of it…We bury it…Because the world rejects it….But for those who do not….The road to heaven is heaven…But make no mistake…As Jesus said today in the gospel…..”He must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation”….The world will always reject those who embrace the ways of God…..…“My kingdom does not belong to this world.…….For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”…....We can not have it both ways!…..The Son of Man will return…Like a flash!…….Are we ready to meet him?

“The LORD gives sight to the blind. The LORD raises up those who were bowed down; the LORD loves the just. The LORD protects strangers”

How do we prepare to meet the Lord?…..A valid question…..The answer to that question is rather simple…We get Baptized and we are free of any mortal sin when die…What is mortal sin?….There are three components to a mortal sin…The sin is grave in nature, We have full knowledge that the sin is grave in nature, and We commit the sin anyway…..ALL mortal sin MUST be confessed to a Catholic Priest!…….This is how we are ready to meet the Lord……When we stand before God (or when Jesus returns, which ever comes first) we will see ourselves as we truly are….Sadly many people in the world today are “blinded” by many things: Self rationalizations, their desires for material gain, pursuits of disordered passions, etc…These things “cloud our vision”…..When the Lord returns, we will see “clearly” and frankly that is a terrifying thought…Because far too many in the world are not ready…But as the saying goes…..”Ready or not here I come!”…......Many years ago I was backpacking in Vietnam….The French occupied Vietnam for a 100 years so there is a significant Catholic presence in the country…On this trip one of the days I spent in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and for an hour on this given day I attend Eucharistic Adoration at a local Church…The Church was packed with people!…Little did I know, the people believed that the sun was appearing in a odd way in the sky at the same time everyday in late afternoon…Similar to the miracle of the sun in Fatima, Portugal…So at this designated time everyone came to pray and I just happned to be in the chapel at that time.....…So when that time arrived - Everyone flooded out of the Adoration Chapel and were frantically pointing at the sun as if Christ was about to return…It was a rather chaotic sight to behold!....Watching this as on outsider standing among these people made me reflect….How will it be when the Son of Man returns from the sky?…He said he would come back - Right?…How will the world receive him?…Are we ready?…Am I ready?

“The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The LORD shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.”

Jesus in the gospel today tells us that the Kingdom of God is within you…That we can experience a “taste of heaven right now”….By striving to do God’s will and living in a state of grace….He also tells us that he will indeed return - Like a flash!…..When we hear these words from the Man we all call God - Do we take his words seriously?….How easy it is to “gloss over” the words of Christ!……Mother Teresa would always say…”I do what I do because I take Jesus at his word”….I think that is a very wise and a common sense approach to our shared Catholic faith…Because if we really believe that Jesus was God and that he rose from the dead…Then we have to believe everything he said - Right?…..The Son of Man will return…Like a flash!…….Are we ready to meet him?