Do Not Lose What We Worked For

Do Not Lose What We Worked For

November 16, 2012

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so "progressive" as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. (2 John 1:7-9)

Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! (Psalms 119:1)

Jesus said to his disciples:"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” (Luke 17:26-33)

Piety

Lord, I know I take You and Your gifts in my life for granted all too often. I pray for Your help in recognizing You in the everyday as well as the large moments.

Study

The people of Noah’s time weren’t a whole lot different from those in Lot’s time… or in ours. While some of them were undoubtedly craven and evil to the core, casting God aside for polytheism or atheism, it’s a safe bet that some of them believed in the Lord… to a point. He just didn’t necessarily have a place in their day-to-day lives. They may have gone through the motions in keeping at least some of the commandments in public, but not in their hearts and souls. The everyday activities of, as Jesus tells the disciples in today’s Gospel reading “eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building” went on for them, with or without much of a prayer or faith life. Some may have thought devotion was for later when they had time, or was limited when they were in synagogue.

Sound familiar?

It’s a sure bet that our earthly lives will end. Most of don’t know exactly when, or whether they will end with the Second Coming or a sudden accident or a lengthy illness. But they will end, and once they do, we won’t have the opportunity to go back and change anything about the way we lived them, anymore than the people of Sodom or of Noah’s time did. Looking back won’t be an option.

Action

What in your day-to-day life doesn’t honor God? Is there something that, as Lot’s wife did, you continue to desire to return to? Pray for guidance. Consider discussing the situation with a confessor or your group reunion.