Sunday, October 20

Dear Friends,

During the last number of weeks in the Church year, our liturgies remind us of the Four Last Things:

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell

The Church wants us to remember our mortality (“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”) We are given only so much time on this earth and we have to live our lives in such a way that we are always ready to meet the Lord at all times. How many of us got that phone call in the middle of the night? “Aunt Jane just died.” “Uncle Ted passed away.” A loved one is diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer or we hear of someone killed in an accident. Even when death is expected after a long illness, you really never know when the Lord will call us home. I have heard so many times of family members sitting at the deathbed of a loved one and they step out of the room for one reason or another and the person dies. The day and hour of death is always a mystery. I don’t think we Christians should ever be morbid about death but, rather, see it as an inevitable part of life. As we hear readings and parables about those Last Four Things during Mass these next few weeks, hopefully we will resolve to make every day count. To live good, moral and holy lives so that on the day when we meet the Lord face to face, He will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant, come and enter into My Kingdom!”

Fr. Al