The Gospel passage today is a beautiful one in which we are reassured of God’s loving Providence and his ultimate desire for us to live blissfully with Him for all eternity. It’s so easy to get swept up in the rhythms and general busyness of daily life. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our routines and all our plans for the future. If we order our priorities properly, however, there’s really only one plan for the future that really matters: preparing our hearts day by day such that we are ready when we finally meet God face to face.
Living an authentic life of faith presents an interesting challenge in that it requires us to balance keeping one foot in the cares and affairs of the temporal world while simultaneously prioritizing the development of our spiritual lives in relationship with Christ. It’s not always an easy balance and the Evil One often does his best to create chaos and conundrums in order to distract us from spending quality time with God. The readings today, however, remind us of a crucial fact that we need to keep in mind every moment of every day: that we are citizens of heaven on an earthly pilgrimage. Let us always strive to keep this fact at the forefront while remembering what Christ has already promised: that He has gone ahead to prepare places for each of us so that where He dwells we too might be.