8 November 2013
Friday in the Thirty-first Week of Ordinary Time
The dishonest steward is faced with an unpleasant prospect: he is in a job he likes, but because he abused it, he is about to be fired. So he decides to make what comes next a better experience by rewriting his boss’ accounts. This is something like our own situation. We are currently in a situation that will eventually end. Namely, we are alive right now, but won’t be after long enough. The next step is to take the steward’s cue and be prudent about what “after” looks like. For most of us, however, there is too much going on in the day-to-day of life to truly stop and think about death and the world to come.
The liturgical calendar for the next few weeks has many opportunities to consider death and what follows. November, of course, is a month dedicated to prayer for the dead. Because of this, it can also be a good opportunity to reflect upon our own death and mortality. Praying for deceased relatives and thinking about how their lives reflected God’s love until the end can serve as a concrete starting place for how we would like our own lives to do the same. Following this, we have the season of Advent. As Fr. George Rutler often observes, the four Sundays of Advent take the Four Last Things—death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell—in succession as the theme for that Sunday’s readings. With these events, we will have plenty of opportunity to consider where our lives are going, and be as prudent in how we live as the dishonest steward.