There are many people who simply live in the moment without looking ahead. While one is young and healthy something such as preparing for death remains far from the mind. No matter how healthy or unhealthy that we may be scripture still tells us, “Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” These words should make us understand that we should seek the Lord and desire to follow after His ways.
From the Prophet Isaiah we were told, “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near.” We are only given so much time in this earthly life to choose to follow after Him who calls each of us by name. Each of the apostles were called by name in order to follow Him and in doing so they abandoned their former way of life. So too we must remain attentive to the Lord through our prayer and be found willing to respond to Him with our life.
Through prayer we enter into this relationship with Him and from our prayer we come to pursue truth. No matter the difficulty of this truth there is a need to not only profess Christ with our lips, but we must also do so within the depths of our heart. As we cross ourself prior to the reading of the Holy Gospel, “May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.” In such manner everything that we do should be informed by faith and thus we will live our life in preparation for eternal life.
Our Gospel passage is not a lesson on economics, but is a lesson on eternal life. In this Gospel we are presented with individuals who received this call at various points in their life. When they heard this call they responded to it with their life and set out to work in the vineyard of the Lord. For their response to this call they came to receive the day’s wage. Again this is not fair in the realm of economics, but in the realm of salvation we should rejoice.
This means that in so far as we are alive there is still time for us to be numbered among the saints of Heaven if we so wish. When we receive this call we cannot respond like Saint Augustine did in his early age, “Lord, make me chaste- but not yet!” If we take up this attitude there comes a chance that we will never allow the message of the Gospel to transform our life. Thankfully, in time Saint Augustine embraced the radical change that was necessary for him to be a saint.
In our prayer we must ask what we are currently holding back from God. In understanding whatever this may be we must be willing to embrace the Gospel and conversion from a life which does not lead to the Lord. If you have not made a good confession in a long time now is the time to return unto the Lord in order that you may embrace His mercy. Each of us are called to be numbered among the saints in Heaven, but we must be willing to entrust our life unto the Lord if this is to be a reality. Let us seek after the Lord for He is near.
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