Wailing And Grinding

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 24:42-51)

This reading (or a portion of it) is usually read at wakes.  We never know when we will die, so let’s live a life of faith and service to Jesus and everything he commanded.  Seems sensible.  We should live our days not putting off until tomorrow what we should do today; that is, we should stay awake.  

Again, we have a reading that deals with hypocrisy.  The thief that is coming is death, but that thief also is a force of evil, some would say Satan, daill seeking to steal our souls by prompting selfish and cruel behavior. If we succumb because we are asleep, or act as hypocrites, our fate eventually will be wailing and grinding of teeth.  Actually, that wailing and grinding will occur every day as we realize the consequences of our actions and the harm we have done to others and ourselves.

Deacon David Pierce