\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Years ago my two boys were in Boy Scouts.\u00c2\u00a0 Now as most of you know, the Boy Scout motto is “Be prepared!”\u00c2\u00a0 And it can’t be a more appropriate motto.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, my wife and I went once with our two boys on an overnight scout canoe trip.\u00c2\u00a0 We were serving as chaperons assisting the Scoutmaster.\u00c2\u00a0 When we got finished with the first day’s rowing and were setting up camp, we discovered that some of the scouts had forgotten a few things.\u00c2\u00a0 One little guy forgot spare underware; another forgot a flashlight; but a third scout forgot his food.\u00c2\u00a0 “Be prepared” was the retort from the scoutmaster, followed by “You are responsible for yourself”.\u00c2\u00a0 Jane and I were a bit shocked at the apparent lack of compassion as the Scoutmaster insisted the young man suffer the consequences of forgetting to bring food.\u00c2\u00a0 Later, he told us quietly that this lesson would insure that it would never happen again.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today’s parable ought to instill the same lesson in all of us.\u00c2\u00a0 You are responsible for your own relationship with God.\u00c2\u00a0 You cannot afford to forget; you have got to be prepared at all times,\u00c2\u00a0 and nobody else can come to your rescue.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus makes an additional point as well. \u00c2\u00a0You can’t deceive him.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever you do while He is away will be discovered, you can be sure of that.\u00c2\u00a0 It will, indeed, be as if He returns at the worst possible moment, when you are off guard.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
It doesn’t have to be that way.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, St. Paul told the Thessalonians that: \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“We have been reassured about you, brothers and sisters, in our every distress and affliction, through your faith” \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So, even though Paul was away from them, the word to him was that they were holding firm, were acting as faithful stewards in his absence.\u00c2\u00a0 And although there were some deficiencies mentioned, the main point is that they were trying,\u00c2\u00a0 They were giving it an honest effort.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what we need to do too.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to always keep our eye on the goal and to “Be Prepared”.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0 August 27, 2009 Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time 1 Thes 3: 7-13; Mt 24: 42-51 Dc. Larry Brockman Years ago my two boys were in Boy Scouts.\u00c2\u00a0 Now as most of you know, the Boy Scout motto is “Be prepared!”\u00c2\u00a0 And it can’t be a more appropriate motto.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}