If you are anything like me you have a lot of plans which you currently have set before you. You probably already know where it is that you will go following this celebration of the Holy Mass. Maybe you have followed this same routine on many occasions and now know it in and out. Nevertheless, no matter how much we may feel that we are in control, in all actuality, we have no clue where it may be that we are headed.
Despite the greatest of our plans there is nothing in this life that we can be 100% sure of except for the reality of death. As stated to us in our Alleluia verse taken from the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “Stay awake and be ready! For you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”
I can think of many ways in which I thought I had all my arrangements in order and yet some unknown factor got in the way of reaching my plans. Last week I spent two days in the hospital after contacting some parasite. This was not on my to do list. I for one had much better things which I planned to be doing on a Friday night.
I say this because we spend so much of our time on this earth building up treasure for ourself that does not hold up to the test of time. Some chase after money, others after fame, and still others after worldly pleasures. No matter what it is that we chase after it can never come to fill us as God does. The Gospel of Saint Luke came to state: “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
When we come to chase after the pleasures of this world we come to place ourself at the center of our own existence. Again, we must be reminded that we are not the one who is in control. Instead God must be found at the very center of our existence. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, the Eucharist must become the source and summit of our faith. If the Eucharist is to be the source and summit of our faith we are stating that we allow our life to rotate around His as the earth rotates around the sun.
Sadly, a recent study reveled that only 30 percent of US Catholics believe that the Eucharist is Christ present with us. In this study 70 percent of US Catholics found it to be a symbol alone. The Eucharist is not a symbol, but is Christ who dwells with here out of love. If this is a mere symbol why bother? Why waste your time being here? If we desire to get everything in order, what matters the most is that we will learn to chase after Christ and fall deeply in love with Him.
None of us knows what lies around the corner. Nevertheless, I do know that Christ loves each of us dearly and desires that we enter into relationship with Him. If Christ becomes the treasure that we seek I can say that we will not be cast out at the end of time. If we place everything in this life over Christ it is possible that we will be cast us for the Father will know us not.
