Stay awake!

Prayer for the Day

“Father, fill my heart with more of Your love. Help me to move in Your peace and patience today, alert to what You want me to do for You.”

Reflection

When I was growing up, great emphasis was placed on what is called the “work ethic.”  This means doing the job at hand, not looking too far down the road, and trying not to get too distracted by extraneous thoughts or temptations.  If you’re digging a ditch, or picking fruit, or re-building an engine, or painting a house, or even balancing a checkbook you know what the end result should be.  But if you don’t concentrate on the details, or the steps to get there, you will not end up where you thought you would.  It’s also important to keep at it—the work won’t get done without effort.

So too with the end days, whether it be of our personal lives or the world itself.  Those events will happen.  We know that as a fact.  But if we lose sight of the details, the journey, the “how” we pick the fruit today, or apply the paint, we won’t end up where we planned, but somewhere else.

Jesus is encouraging us to have a “work ethic”, when He says, "You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Matthew 24:42-51)

Are you prepared? Are you doing the work the Lord has given you to do today? Stop and think a minute. As soon as you're done reading this, what is it that the Lord has given you to do next? Perhaps change a diaper? Finish a report? Wash some dishes or laundry? Read a chapter of a textbook? Say a rosary?  Send off that charitable donation? Only you and He know what it is.  So get to it!  And whatever the task is, do it well!  That’s the best way to evangelize!