‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know
the day or the hour.’ (Matthew 25:13)
Matthew 25:1-13
(Year A: Advent-3)
In the Buddhist
tradition one is encouraged by two words: mindfulness and practice. This also lies the at the core of
Jewish-Christian-Islamic life: mindfulness
of the great love of God who is ever present and, at the same time, the practice of justice/love/mercy. The two
go hand in hand. The genuine quality of our mindfulness is tested by our
practice. Our praxis is grounded in mindfulness. Being ready and prepared is
about living out of the centre of our lives:
Grounded in the present moment in the here
Relaxed in this moment
Attentive to the Other
Centered in our own bodies and minds
Energised by the current of love that flows through
from the ground on which we stand
GRACE!
Living gracefully takes
habit and practice. It is never, ever
too late to begin all over again here, now, in this moment and place. To live
well means to live each day and each hour as if could be our last. Someday this
will actually turn out to be the case.
One night I stood
beside my mother when she was dying and prayed for her and for me as follows:
‘Pray for us now and at the hour of our death’. She was too ill to say those
words but she had said them many, many times in the course of her long
lifetime. I sensed that her hour had come so those words had special meaning.
The secret to a long
and good life and a happy one too is to be always ready by being grounded in
the here and now enjoying and living fully the present moment of life while
being fully attentive to the presence, needs and communication of whoever is
next to us.
Perhaps it was my mother who was praying for me
that night just as much as I was praying for her.
