MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Homily

November 22 THURSDAY

33RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Year-B

Readings: Rev 5:1-10; Lk 19:41-44

What will one think of a captain of a ship who does not know the destination of the journey and does not care about the storms and perils of the sea? What would one think of a pilot of an aeroplane who sleeps away or smokes cigars and is not bothered about stormy weather? We are captains of our souls. But we can not, on our own, guide ourselves to our destiny. That is why the Lord will be visiting us regularly with his, grace, grace to keep our focus on our eternal home, grace to pass safe through the troubled waters of temptations, grace to avoid the rocks of the false values of the world. This means that we need to know the time of his visitation and use it, without getting completely distracted by temporal cares, a grave mistake that the Jews made. Jesus wept over the people of Jerusalem because they had again and again missed the opportunity of God’s visitation and lost “the things that make for peace” (Lk 19:42). Shakespeare wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.” This was the fate of the citizens of Jerusalem who missed opportunities for peace. How are we using the Lord’s visitations in our own lives?