Wis 18:6-9; Heb 11:1-2, 8-19; Luke 12:32-48
It’s August. Summer nears its end. Even the church in the gospel is pointing to the “end times.” Last week we heard, “you fool, tonight your life will be demanded of you.” We hear similar today. But we live in hope.
We remain faithful to the particular work that Christ has given us to do. For all of us, the mission involves serving the Gospel. It’s called evangelizing(Evangelii Nuntiandi). All of us evangelize — by our good deeds – which are Christ’s deeds. We are all called “to distribute the food at the proper time” as we hear in today’s gospel. In his encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), Pope Francis says: “Anyone who sets off on the path of doing good to others is already drawing near to God.”
Today’s gospel exhorts us to watch for Christ’s coming, to expect it daily, not just at the end times: His coming is not just an experience of Christ judging; it’s also an experience of Christ strengthening. He strengthened Abraham for his mission and it led to great generativity.
Today’s gospel message also follows yesterday’s Feast of the Transfiguration. This reminds us that our lives are transfigured by Christ’s radiance. Pope Francis says in Lumen Fidei, “[A]ll things have a certain transparency, that they can reflect God’s goodness.” But we must be vigilant for his coming daily. Paul Elie in his book The Life You Save May Be Your Own presents the example of Dorothy Day of The Catholic Worker in New York City. She served the poor generously. She also loved the opera; and she listened to the radio broadcast each Saturday afternoon from the Met. One day someone came upon her listening. She appeared lost in the music, transported, transfigured by the beauty of the experience. Each of us has a susceptibility to beauty like that. God knows it, and God uses it to reach each of us. We must be vigilant for his coming in these moments. Why? They renew our faith, our hope in things unseen, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us today. Dorothy Day loved to quote Dostoevsky who said: ‘The world will be saved by beauty.’ Yes, we are transformed by beauty – if we let it touch us, transfigure us — because it is an image of God’s beauty. Christ is the source of that beauty. Then, transfigured, we preach it –in our deeds, “the distribution of goods.” That’s evangelizing. We’re like Abraham — and Dorothy Day.
The beauty of summer, soon ending, gives us life. We must store up these experiences against the cold dark winter, coming soon. Dorothy Day did this with her Saturday operas.
If we remain alert, when Christ comes at the end time, we will look like Peter, James and John and Dorothy Day whose lives were transfigured by the light of the Transfiguration spilling onto them. Christ will recognize himself in us because we will have evangelized by our good deeds that light up the lives of others.