Today’s gospel ends with a serious warning: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of man will come”. I would like to focus my reflections today on the importance of being prepared for the coming of the Lord into our lives and on ways to work on this preparation.

As I meditated this week on “being prepared”, I recalled the time my mother experienced a hurricane for the first time in her life. My mother’s last four years of life were my first four years as a priest. During those four years, she would divide her time between Colombia and North Carolina. Hurricanes never reach Colombia, so my mother had her first hurricane experience here. Two days before the hurricane came ashore, some people scared my mother, telling her how hurricanes take roofs off and how trees fall on houses. My mother was so scared that previous night that she was not able to sleep at all. Consequently, the night the hurricane landed, she was so tired and sleepy that she slept through the hurricane and did not feel anything at all.

Now, the importance being prepared for the ultimate coming of the Lord into our lives is obvious. However, the fact that many people meet him unprepared proves that many of us, especially the young and the healthy, believe his coming is delayed. Today’s beautiful readings propose us several ways to get this preparation underway. I would like to briefly mention three of them: stay awake, put on the Lord, and walk in the light of the Lord.  

First, stay awake. The Lord does not warn against physical sleep but against sin. The counter example the Lord gives us is that of the people who lived in the time of the flood. They were just like our own generation that eats, and drinks, and marries. The problem with Noah’s generation was that their sins were so serious that God could not find any other way to fix the situation than to start a new civilization with Noah’s family. Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans tells his readers, “It is the hour now for you to wake up from sleep”. As a good spiritual master, he tells them and us that it is never Okay to remain living in sin. The acknowledgment of our sins is the initial step in the process of conversion. The prodigal son came to his senses and acknowledged the sins he had committed; that was the beginning of his way back to his father’s home.

Secondly, to put ourselves on the Lord. Saint Paul tells the Romans that once they would wake up from their sleep, they need to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light”. By darkness he means sin and by light he means faith. That is exactly what happens in baptism. We first renounce sin and second we profess our faith. Saint Paul then says, “Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealously. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh”. These were the words that Saint Augustine read at the moment of his conversion. Saint Augustine in the garden of his house heard the voice of a child telling him to “take up and read”. He went inside the house and picked up the New Testament and the part that his eyes landed on when he opened the book were these from the letter to the Romans. That was all he needed to hear to commit to his desire to become Christian. At baptism we put on the Lord. The white garment symbolizes our new dignity which we are to keep unstained until the day of the coming of the Lord.

Thirdly and lastly, to walk in the light of the Lord. The prophet Isaiah makes this beautiful invitation to the people of Israel: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord”. He says, “Come” which implies that they need to begin walking in the direction of the light of the Lord. This invitation is also valid for us. We need to start walking in the direction of the light of the Lord. This is exactly the way the beautiful season of Advent works. During the following four weeks we are to walk in the direction of the light of the Lord. The Advent wreath is a beautiful symbol of the spiritual path our souls should be going through these days.

Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us his grace to make the proper steps now to get ready for his coming into our lives whenever he chooses to do so.