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Every year, every month, every day we face a spiritual challenge: Be awake! Attend to
what is important! Open your mind and heart to real peace; hunger for real peace. Jesus
puts it in this way: Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord
will come. (Matthew 24: 42) St Paul tells Timothy: "Be ready in season and out of season.
ů. But you be watchful in all things..." (2 Timothy 4:2-5)
But every year, every month, every day, we have too much on our daily agenda to be attentive
to God's reality here with us! We are too busy to keep watch. We are too busy to attend
to the important thing in life. We may be willing to let God control the future, but
not to control the present. Jesus says it's urgent, but, well, maybe for me that's not
urgent enough? God's reality, if we do not cover it up with all the many things we want
to do, we have to do, unites me with myself - and with God. God's reality unites people
with each other - and with God. Do you know the story of the wise old Rabbi
trying to explain to his students about going from darkness to light? He asked his students
"How can you tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?" The students said, "It's
when there is enough light to properly recognise an animal, or a tree." Gently, the Rabbi explained,
"No, it's when you can look at a man or a woman and recognise them as your brother and
sister. For if you cannot recognise your brother - even yourself - in the face of a stranger,
the darkness has not yet begun to melt away; and the light has not yet come."