Make the most of each day …. and start doing so today, not tomorrow …
According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis stressed this to faithful during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, as he reflected on the text from Psalm 95, which the author of the Letter to the Hebrews took up in the 3rd chapter. A portion of the text was read at Mass.
Francis stressed to those present that there is “only one ‘today’, in our lives,” only one «real,» «concrete» today.
«Our temptation and everyone’s temptation is to say: ‘Yes, I will do tomorrow,’ Francis acknowledged, however adding, «though this is the temptation of a ‘tomorrow’ there will not be.” The Pontiff recalled how Jesus warns of this in the parable of the ten virgins – the five foolish ones who had not taken oil with them along with their lamps, then find the door locked when they go to buy it.»
Now or Never
“I say this not to scare you, but simply to say that our life is today: now or never. I think of this: tomorrow will be the eternal tomorrow that never sets, with the Lord forever – if I am true to this day; and the question that I put to you is the same the Holy Spirit is putting to all of us, i.e. ‘How ought I to live, this day?”
Francis also highlighted the second word repeated in the reading: “heart.”
With the heart, he pointed out, “we meet the Lord,” rather than be like those who Jesus rebukes having ‘hardened’ hearts or being slow of heart.
“‘Today’ is played out in our hearts,» Francis said, asking, «Are our hearts opened to the Lord?»
«To me it always strikes me when I find an older person – often priests or nuns – who tell me, ‘Father, pray for my final perseverance’ – ‘But, you did well all your life long, all the days of your ‘today’ are in the service of the Lord, and still you are afraid?’ ‘No, no, my life has not yet waned: I want to live it fully, I pray that the day arrives full, full, with a heart strong in faith, and not ruined by sin, vices, corruption.’”
More Time Only Until God Says ‘Enough’
The Holy Father invited all faithful to question theirselves about their own time and their own heart.
«Today, Francis cautioned, «is ‘full of days’ but ‘we will not repeat’ any one of them. Days go by until the Lord says “enough.”
«We go home with these two words only: how is my ‘today:’ The sunset can be today, this day or many days later. But how are you, my today, in the presence of the Lord? … And how is my heart: Is it open? Is it firm in the faith? is it led by the Lord?»
With these two questions; Pope Francis concluded saying, «we ask the Lord for the grace to which each of us needs.”
