Ready? Get set. Go!

DID you hear the story about a doctor who told his patient that she had only six weeks to live? Shocked, the patient said: "Oh doctor, this is all so sudden. I don't even know how I can pay you in six weeks." "In that case, I am giving you another six months to live," the doctor replied.

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In today's Gospel (Lk. 12, 35-40), Jesus reminds us to be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour we do not expect. No one knows when death will come, and no one and nothing can stop it when it comes. In the face of the finality and suddenness of death, Jesus' advice is simple: Don't stop it. Just be ready for it.
Are you ready? Are you set to go?

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I remember how much I prayed to God to keep my father alive while he was at the ICU in 1987. I kept vigil every night at St. Luke's Hospital, bargaining with God, to let my father live a little bit more, for after all I was His priest who had served Him all these years. I even reminded him I had blessed and anointed others who needed my priestly service at the emergency room, hoping that I could "bribe" God to let my father live just a little bit more. But all to no avail. There is nothing in us that could stop death. What made it more painful for me was that I wasn't there at his deathbed when he passed away at 3 p.m. of June 23, 1987. That was the only afternoon when I left the hospital to join my fellow priests for a meal, and when I came back, the nurses were already removing the tubes and the needles from his lifeless body. That sad afternoon, I accepted in a very personal way that death is real and final, a ruthless thief and snatcher, ugly and unstoppable.

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Someone hit the nail on the head when he said that when we focus too much on our appearance, we tend to forget our "disappearance." We all will die. None of us will leave this world alive. We all know that we will make the journey into the "great beyond" sooner or later, and yet we do not prepare and make provisions for the journey. Many of us are so busy putting up buildings on the shore and storing up treasures in them, and we forget to build and equip the ship that will bring us into the sea.

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Am I ready? I don't know. Are you? All that is asked of us is to do our best, our very best, while we are still alive. The bottom line is that at the end of our lives, when we finally face our Creator, if we can tell Him, "Lord you know me. You know everything about me. I am a sinner, but I have done my very best, to you I leave the rest," then we have hope, we have peace. Ready or not, in the end, we entrust ourselves into God's mercy and love.

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There is a story about a priest who was trying to say some words of comfort to the relatives of the deceased. He used the analogy of the peanut. Pointing to the coffin, he said, "Actually, what we see here is the shell, the nut is gone!" Oh, oh. Come to think of it, many of us are really nuts in the sense that we pursue foolish passions, dreams and illusions in our lifetime.

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Have you had a "wake-up call" recently? From time to time, at opportune times, God sends across our way moments, people and experiences to wake us up from our comfortable slumber, to remind us of what is really important and basic in our lives. Trials, disappointments, accidents, illnesses, separations, setbacks, death and near death experiences make us go back to God's intended flight plan for us. A wake-up call is God's way of saying "I love you," in a painful way, to wake us up.

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The time to love is now, not later, not tomorrow, not next year. The best preparation for a happy death is a well spent life, so full of meaning, service and love. Loving is like planting trees. The best time to plant them was 10 years ago. The second best time to plant them is now.

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Hellen Keller, when asked as to what happens to our lost opportunities, replied that perhaps our guardian angels gather them up to give them back when we shall have grown wiser and can use them rightfully. But what if we don't get the chance to grow older and wiser? Again, the message is clear: Do not postpone your loving; do not postpone your conversion.

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Last August 4, the Feast of St. John Vianney, we celebrated Priest's Day. On my way down from a sick call at Cardinal Santos Hospital, I met a couple at the elevator who casually informed me that Monsignor Alfredo Rodriguez was at Room 504. Being Priests' Day and all, I went up to bless him and ask for his blessing. On my way down, guess what? I met someone who told me she was going to visit Father Carlos Returico at Room 510, and up I went again. And, as I was going down again, I met the family of Father Joey Paras, SDB, so, you guessed it, up I went again. Yes, the time to love is now, for we know not the time nor the hour!

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A moment with the Lord:

Lord, help me to be always ready, and always to get set, because anytime, I can go. Amen.