Christ comes when we least expect it

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We can obviously read today’s readings with an eye toward the end times when Christ will return in glory. However, as people of faith living in the time between Christ’s Ascension and Second Coming, we also recognize that the Gospel’s urgency to be ready is not only for the end of time but for every moment of each day.

Christ comes when we least expect it. When I was working in full-time ministry, Christ often came in the guise of the newly-engaged couple who stopped me before Mass just as I was trying to get some last minute rehearsal done with the choir. The eager couple wanted to schedule a meeting the next week—Holy Week!—to pick music for their wedding two years from that day.

Sometimes Christ called on the phone with a complaint about a song I had chosen for the previous Sunday and, in the end, really just wanted someone to listen to them. Once in a while, Christ came as the distraught daughter whose mother has just died, whose grief came out as anger at the church and all its rules about what was appropriate or not for a funeral.

When Christ comes at these moments, will he find us ready to greet him with joy?