Rev. Fr. K M George
A friend of mine called me this afternoon after a
long interval and queried about my health etc. I complained to him that there
was too much work - writing assignments, meetings and travel, and I didn't get
any time to rest and look after 'my own things', nobody to assist me, and I
have aches and pains all over.... the usual stuff that we tell people close to
us !
Lent is a wake-up call. It repeatedly exhorts
us to shed laziness and be wakeful. The day has come when you should work hard
in all righteousness, we sing in the night prayer of Lenten Monday:
'O lazy one, get up and shake off your
slothfulness and earnestly work in the garden. Jesus calls you to the work of
repentance, and even if you work only for the last hour you will still get the
same Dinar, the full reward of life.'
Work in this context is repentance (metanoia) and
all its fruits in our everyday life in terms of acts of love and compassion as
well as our spiritual disposition to everything in the world. One is never late
to get to work. Every moment is the appointed time (kairos)[1]. So now is the
time.
The work here is obviously different from the work
that we do in our everyday life..
Jesus was fond of telling us the parable of the
faithful servant in its different versions.
Alertness is the quality of the true steward. He
does not know when the master will return, whether in the middle of the night
or in the early morning. So the faithful steward is ever ready to receive him,
and present him his accounts while the unfaithful one takes this
unpredictability as an occasion for a wayward life and the squandering of
resources.
Lent has the recurring theme of the End: the end of
the world, the end of one's individual life. This is the uncertain dimension
that urges us to be constantly watchful.
"Therefore, you also must be ready; for
the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect".
Matthew 24: 44
In the Indian Hindu-Buddhist tradition our
awareness can reach enlightenment once for all, like in the case of the Buddha.
In the Christian tradition, a complete turning around, metanoia or conversion,
can happen in our awareness as in the life of St Paul.
However, in the case of
ordinary mortals, we need to continuously cultivate this awareness and
vigilance. It is work. It is also grace, the power of the Holy Spirit who
graciously enables us to remain ever wakeful to God's gift of forgiveness and
joy.
[1] Kairos is an ancient Greek word.
The ancient Greeks had two words for time chronos and kairos. Chronos refers
to chronological or sequential time whereas kairos means the
right or opportune moment.
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