Wake up, sleepyheads.

As in the days of Noah, so will it be.....

From Saint Gregory of Nyssa (around 335-395), Monk and Bishop, Homily 11 on the Song of Songs

“They ate and drank, they bought and sold.”

The Lord gave his disciples important recommendations so that they might shake off like dust everything earthly in their nature and might thus be raised to the desire for supernatural realities.

According to one of these recommendations, those who turn towards life on high must be stronger than sleep and must always remain watchful… I am talking about the drowsiness that arises among those who are plunged in life’s lie through illusory dreams such as honors, riches, power, pomp, the fascination of pleasure, ambition, the thirst for enjoyment, vanity and everything that their imagination leads superficial people to seek madly.

All these things pass away with the fleeting nature of time; they belong to the domain of appearances… Hardly have they seemed to exist when they disappear like the waves of the sea…So that our minds might be free of these illusions, the Word invites us to shake this deep sleep from the eyes of our soul, so that we might not slip away from the true realities by becoming attached to that which has no consistency. That is why he suggests that we be watchful when he says: “Let your belts be fastened around your waists and your lamps be burning ready.” (Lk 12:35)

For when the light shines before our eyes, it chases sleep away, and when our kidneys are held tight by a belt, they prevent the body from succumbing to it… The person who has fastened the belt of temperance lives in the light of a pure conscience; the trust of a child illuminates his life like a lamp… If we live like that, we will enter into a life that is like that of the angels.

St. Bernard on keeping watch in the Holy Spirit

Today's Gospel...

Lk 12:35-38
Jesus said to his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lampsand be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watchand find them prepared in this way,blessed are those servants."

From St. Bernard of Clairvaux, (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church

Sermon 17 on the Song of Songs, 2

"We have to be vigilant and careful about the work of salvation ceaselessly performed in our inmost being with all the skill and sweetness of the Holy Spirit's artistry. If we do not wish to be deprived of a twofold gift, let us make sure that this heaven-sent Director, who can teach us all things, is never taken away from us without our knowledge.

Let him never find us unprepared when he comes, but always with faces uplifted and hearts expanded to receive the copious blessing of the Lord. Let him find us "like people who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage-feast", for he never comes empty-handed from heaven's richly-laden table. Therefore we must keep watch, even hour by hour, for we do not know at what hour he will come and depart again.

The Holy Spirit comes and goes (Jn 3:8), and if we can stand firmly only with his support, it follows that we must fall when abandoned by him; fall, yes, but never fatally, since the Lord supports us by the hand. Persons who are spiritual or whom the Holy Spirit purposes to make spiritual, never cease to experience these alternations; he visits them every morning and tests them at any moment. "