Tomorrow

Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Dn 3: 31, 29, 30, 43, 42 All that you have done to us, O Lord, you have done with true judgment, for we have sinned against you and not obeyed your commandments. But give glory to your name and deal with us according to the bounty of your mercy.

Collect O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven. 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

Scripture today: Job 3:1-3.11-17.20-23; Psalm 87; Luke 9:51-56

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56)

Tomorrow The rolling hills and green trees appear beautiful. All is quiet, with the sound of the running brook gently breaking the silence. All else is still, and suddenly a black bird flies across the landscape as the visitor to the scene looks on. It is a crow, and it is making its characteristic cry. Its cry peals out, a single sound, constantly repeated. The crow has no music in its hoarse song. There is no lullaby, no melody, no variety in its repertoire. What a contrast with the sound of the bellbird, or the canary, or any one of a number of other birds! All it can do is utter one sound with its single note. It is like the repeated bark of a tiny dog that has one sound to make from its throat as it travels ahead. The visitor is a Latin scholar — he teaches and researches Latin at university — and as he looks at the crow flying forward and pealing out its cry, he imagines it to be calling out a Latin word. The word is Cras! Cras! Cras! Cras! One sound fills the scene, and it is Cras! Nothing else is heard in the beautiful terrain, except for the murmur of the brook as it makes its way over the rocks and leaves in its path. Cras? Tomorrow! Always tomorrow, the crow seems to be warning the world, and in particular the visitor who watches on. The word from the crow is the voice of his conscience, being reflected by the call of the flying bird. Cras! You are always going to do tomorrow what you should do now! You are not facing up to your present duties. You are putting off what is difficult. You are always choosing today what is the easy and more congenial course. Your life consists of pipe-dreams. You hope to do all that you know you should do, you intend doing it, you have plenty of good intentions, but you do not get down to it now. It is always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. You are self-indulgent. You do not forgive now. You continue doing what you enjoy, not what serves God and neighbour. This groove you are in is the death-knell to grandeur in your ordinary life as a family man, husband, father, university teacher. You never get down to it now. You could become a saint, but you are always putting it off. In particular, you hate and avoid the cross of Christ. Cras! For you, it is always tomorrow!

In our Gospel today (Luke 9:51-56), we have a vivid scene of the determined Christ. The time was approaching for him to be taken up to heaven. His time was short. He had spent himself for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He was the Bridegroom, and he had given himself to the bride, and he was about to give himself to the end. The climax of his mission was approaching, and once that climax had been reached, surmounted and conquered, the great gates would he left open for all to pass through. The mountain had been reached, and he was about to climb. There was no Cras with Christ. A terrible ordeal awaited him, the like of which had never been experienced by any individual in history, nor would it ever be. He was about to bear the temporal consequences of the sin of the entire world. He would be treated as if he were the sin of the world, and by his endurance, he would expiate for it. When we think of the Passion of Christ, we naturally think of the terrible ordeal of a Roman crucifixion. But that does not exhaust the scale of suffering it involved for him, for he was bearing within that punishment what no other crucified man bore. When we attempt to imagine what Jesus Christ suffered, we ought attempt to imagine the sin of the world. It is with this that he was being burdened. The physical and mental anguish of crucifixion was, we might say, the mere tip of the iceberg. In the midst of this degradation he even bore the incalculable and indescribable anguish of abandonment by his heavenly Father — for he was, as it were, the world’s sin. No other suffering could be compared with it, but in the plan of God the Messiah had thus to suffer in order to enter his glory. And so he “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” There was no Tomorrow with Jesus Christ, no Cras! Cras! There ought be no putting off of duty in the life of the Christian either. It is a fundamental reason for the non-attainment of sanctity, that we put things off. We feel the summons of conscience and of grace. It involves difficulty. It involves the Cross. So, imperceptibly we put it off till tomorrow. We are always doing that, and we do not reach the high destination God plans for us.

Let us think of Christ steadfastly striding forward to embrace the Cross. It was the plan of God that he suffer and so enter his glory. It was always now! It was never, well — tomorrow! Whatever was the will of his heavenly Father, he chose to do now. Let us live now in the way we shall have wished to live when we appear before God. Let us so live that the present truly serves for eternity. There is only the present duty, and any thought of a future opportunity may be premature. All we have is what is now. We cannot count on tomorrow. Let us do our duty now. Let it not be, cras — tomorrow, but nunc — now!

(E.J.Tyler)

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Second Reflection: (Luke 9:51-56)

Resolute in our God-given Work "As the time drew near for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem.." (Luke 9: 51). Jerusalem was the place of his coming Passion and Death. All our life the day is drawing ever nearer when we will, as we devoutly hope, be taken up to heaven. Life for the Christian is an advance to that day, and the meaning of death is our meeting with Christ in heaven. Our Lord was aware that the time for him to be taken up to heaven was drawing near. So also we, in union with Christ, ought be aware of this. Having this in mind we should, like our Lord, be resolute as he was resolute. We should be resolute in following the path that God has laid out for us which leads to our meeting with Christ in heaven.

That path is the energetic and loving fulfilment of our daily duties and responsibilities, in a word, of our work in life, in the broadest sense of the word. It could even be a particular train of sufferings such as illness or some great misfortune. As St Bernadette Soubirous began her last illness, she described it as her final “job.” Whatever our work is, we must use our time profitably in union with our Lord who resolutely took his path to the end, and thus saved the world.

(E.J.Tyler)

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