DAILY HOMILIES #Judgement day

The irony in Jesus’ parable is that those who passed the test did not know they were being tested. “Lord, when did we see you in these conditions and minister to you?” Those who would make heaven are naturally kind, people who help others without thinking of it or expecting anything in return. Unfortunately, such persons are not churchgoers. They may have never heard the Gospel, yet they live it out daily.

Children are the future. If you fail to properly educate one child, at least morally, you literally destroy an entire generation. For Jesus, leading one child astray through bad example is such a grievous crime deserving of death by drowning with a millstone hung around one’s neck.

There is only one criterion for entering paradise: kindness to the least person (the smallest, weakest, poorest, youngest, unimportant), the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned.

Let us not be overcome by the pervasive evil around us. If you cannot beat them, don’t join them. Continue to raise your heads high in virtue and never give in to sin because your redemption is close at hand.

Jesus is teaching us first to think carefully like this steward of what shall become of us after our death (when we are relieved of our stewardship) and secondly, to use “what does not belong to us now” to be charitable to others so that like this steward, we would be welcomed into Paradise.

In the end, the only thing that should concern us is whether or not our names are written in the book of life. What shall it profit a man that he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Nothing! Today is a day to repent, to begin afresh; to perform good deeds that would inscribe your name in that book of life.