December 1995

Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matt. 24:42)

Have you noticed that in general you do not live your life, but you let it drag by, while you look to the future when something great will happen? There is indeed a 'great future' in store for you, but it is not the one you expect.

A God-given instinct makes you look forward to someone or something that will be able to satisfy you. You think about a day off, a holiday, a special meeting, but when they are over you are not satisfied, at least not fully. So once more you pick up the routine of an existence lived without conviction, always waiting for something else.

The truth is that among the many features of life, your own too, there is one that nobody can avoid. It is the personal meeting with the Lord who is coming. This is the 'great future' you are unconsciously waiting for, because you are made for happiness, and only He can give you full happiness.

And because Jesus knows that you and I are blindly searching for happiness, he warns us:

Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Watch. Pay attention. Stay awake: because although there are many things in the world that you are not sure of, there is one thing you can certainly have no doubts about: one day you will die. For a Christian this means presenting ourselves before Christ who is coming.

Perhaps you too, like many other people, deliberately and purposefully forget about death. You fear that moment and live as if it did not exist. Rooting yourself more and more in your earthly life, you say: "Death frightens me; therefore it doesn't exist." Yet that moment will come because Christ will certainly come.

Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

With these words Jesus refers to His coming on the last day. As He ascended into heaven from in the midst of His apostles, so He will return.

But these words also refer to the coming of the Lord at the end of each person's life. After all, when someone dies, for him or her the world is ended.

And as you don't know whether Christ will come today, this evening, tomorrow, or in a year or more, you must be vigilant. You must be like those who stay awake because they know thieves are coming to raid their house, but they don't know exactly when.

If Jesus is coming it means this life is a passing thing. And if so, rather than undervalue it, you should give it the greatest importance. You must prepare yourself for that encounter with Him by living a worthy life.

Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Undoubtedly, you must be vigilant. Your life is not merely a calm succession of events. It is also a struggle. And a wide variety of temptations, such as those of vanity, attachment to money, improper sexuality, and violence, are your enemies.

If you are always vigilant you won't let yourself be taken by surprise.

But the most vigilant are those who love. Vigilance is characteristic of love.

When you love someone, you are constantly watching and waiting for their return. Every moment away from that person is spent with him or her in mind.

For instance, a wife whose husband is away thinks of him as she goes about her work or as she prepares something for him. Everything is done with him in mind. Consequently, when he arrives her happy welcome contains all the joyful work of the day. And it is the same towards her for her husband.

A mother is like this when she is nursing her sick child and she has to take a break. She may sleep, but her heart is always watchful.

Those who love Jesus do likewise. They live for Him. He is the one they meet in the ordinary expressions of His will in every moment and He is the one with whom they will have a solemn meeting on the day that He comes.

This is what happened once in Brazil.

At Santa Maria in southern Brazil a religious gathering for 250 young people had just ended. Most of them had come from the city of Pelotas. The first coach left with 45 young people on board. They were really happy, singing songs filled with love for Jesus. As they drove on some of the girls started to pray together, asking for faithfulness to God to the end of their lives. A short time later, on a bend, the brakes failed and the bus went off the road turning over three times down a 150 foot slope into the valley below. Six of the girls died.

One who survived said: "I saw death at first hand, but I was not afraid because God was there." Another said: "When I realised I could move, in the midst of the wreckage, I looked up at the starry sky and prayed, kneeling among the bodies of my friends. God was there with us."

The father of Carmen Regina, one of the girls who died, told us that she often used to say: "Dying is a beautiful thing, Daddy, because you go to be with Jesus."

Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

The girls from Pelotas were watching because they were loving, and when the Lord came, they went to meet him with joy.

Chiara Lubich.