Cpllect for 19th Sunday of Year C

COLLECT SERIES

The Mass: Collect Series Icon.

COLLECT 

The Collect for the 19th Sunday of the Year Year C is as follows:

Almighty ever-living God,

whom taught by the Holy Spirit,

we dare to call our Father,

bring we pray, to perfection in our hearts

the spirit of adoption as Your sons and daughters,

that we may merit to enter into the inheritance

which you have promised.

Through our lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

who lives and reigns with You

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God for ever and ever.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

                                       
In making this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflections questions emerged:

1. 1.       What is my relationship with God the Father?
2. .         What is my relationship with Jesus?
3. .         What is my relationship with the Holy Spirit?
4.  .       What are the areas in my life that I need help from God?
5.  .       Consider the love with which Christ handed himself over to death. What personal          response do I make to Jesus for this enormous love.
6. .        How will I merit the inheritance of the Kingdom this coming week?
   
   GOSPEL REFLECTION.

Do you every listen to the Gospel and think this is a shot in the arm- a real dig requiring a definite response?  Actually every Gospel is a shot in the arm but some have extra punch which may move us out of our comfortableness of our lives and hit right at our souls.

Today’s Gospel is one of those Gospel’s where it begs us to stand or sit up and take notice.

Jesus tells His disciples in the Gospel from Luke 12:32-48 how they should conduct their lives on earth so that they will always be found in God’s friendship when their call to judgement comes.

Obviously, this applies to us as well as disciples. Jesus is wanting us to be in His friendship when our call to judgement comes.  The question we might want to ask ourselves is

‘’ If I was to die today, am I ready to meet God’’?

It should also be noted that Jesus makes it clear to Peter and to us that more will be expected of those who have received greater gifts from God than of those who receive lesser gifts.  God will be expecting something from everyone not just those who have received more. However, the expectation is higher because the gift is greater.

Jesus offers us eternal life and to be co heirs with Him. He has taken us into his household. He has made us his "little flock." We are invited guests in his home, his Church, rather than mere servants.

Jesus warns us today that we must always be busy about our vocation, about the reason why he invited us into his home. If we grasped clearly what that call of Christ means, what our Christian vocation is, we would hardly need today's warning. We are Christians, we are members of his Church, for our own eternal good. God, through Christ's Incarnation, has put us on the road to heaven. He is ever helping us on the way.

Do we want our blindness to our own spiritual welfare that we would risk losing the eternal life that God has in store for us, and for which He went to the extreme lengths of love?   Surely, we must give an emphatic no to this question and yet, if we are honest, we need to look at the real facts of our lives and then ask the question again.  Do we want to be destined for Heaven but through our own folly, travel on the road in the wrong direction?

The warning in today’s Gospel is that our call to judgement will come on each one of us like a thief in the night, at a moment when we least expect it. This need not be a sudden death since even those who die after long illnesses rarely die when relatives expect or admit he/she is about to die. How many times have you heard a relative/friend/parishioner being shocked that their loved one died on that particular day. Often they say  ‘’ they looked so much better- I thought  they looked like they were recovering today’’ 

So in reality all deaths are sudden- unexpected. We should not be worried by an unexpected death if we are a good Catholic/Christian.  Anxiety needs to be high if our death is unprepared or unprovided. 

God provides us through the church many opportunities for grace through the Sacraments and through prayer. Added to that, if we are sincerely trying to live a good Catholic life  doing our daily tasks  with love in our hearts for God and putting God first place in everything we do, think and say then we know, by God’s grace that God will provide for us at the time of our death.

Obviously, we have to live in the world but our real interest should be on our eternal interest.

This Gospel then is a timely reminder and gives us the opportunity to look at the way we are living today. We need to assess our lives and ask:

1. .     How is our behaviour in the home?
2. .      How is our behaviour in place of work?
3.          How is our behaviour in your recreation?
4.          How is our relations with God—prayers and church attendance—and with your
        neighbour,
5.         If God called on my life tonight, am I ready to meet Him face to face?

If there is even one thing you need to change- then do it. Change today whilst there is time so that you know you are preparing for an unexpected death not an unprepared one.

Death will be graduation day for the good Catholic/Christian—not examination day.

Let us graduate to eternal life with flying colours.