Today, we hear Jesus tell a very interesting
parable about a servant who is supposed to keep watch all of the time to fend
off robbers from breaking into the master's house. The point of the parable is that we need to
be constantly on guard, as we do not know when Jesus, the Son of Man, will
come.
Just how watchful are
we? We can be very vigilant, we can be on guard at all times, we can make all
kinds of preparations and plans, but our best laid plans can sometimes fail or
not go as we think they will. And that
is where our faith calls out to us for constant conversion, for us to always
reach out to God, to make him the center of our lives. This helps us to prepare for the coming of
Christ, it helps us to always be on guard.
Sure, our plans will sometimes fail, or roadblocks will get in our way,
or we will become distracted in some way, but our faith always calls us back to
Christ, always back to where we belong.
As we hear about how we need to always be
watchful and be on guard, of how our faith always brings us back to the Lord, we
commemorate St. John de Brebeuf & his 7 Jesuit companions who were martyred
by the Mohawk natives in Canada in 1649 as they brought the word of God to the
Huron nation. In addition to converting
hundreds of Hurons to the Catholic faith in the present-day Canadian provinces
of Ontario & Quebec, this saint also wrote a Huron – French dictionary that
is still used today in the study of the native languages of North America. John
de Brebeuf is also credited with writing the first original native North
American Christmas carol, which has been sung in parts of Canada since the
early 1600s. In fact, whenever I go back
to Winnipeg to visit my friends during the Christmas season, I enjoy singing
this hymn in church.
Across history & time, John de
Brebeuf cries out in the wilderness, to a faith & a mission that perhaps we
don't see often enough in our society.
Tuberculosis almost kept him from becoming a Jesuit, yet he persevered,
heading off to North America to bring our Catholic faith to others, even though
he knew he would probably die of illness or violence at a young age like so
many other missionaries did. Jean de
Brebeuf stayed true to his faith, he listened to where God was calling him, eschewing
earthly possessions & earthly glory.
May John de Brebeuf & his Jesuit
companions, the patron saints of Canada, be examples to us in how can live out
our lives of faith with zeal & courage, of how we should always be watchful
and on guard for the faith, not letting the ways of the world get in the way of
what is truly important.
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