Homily: September 2, 2025, Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time (Thief)
“For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”
Have you experienced having a thief coming into your home, silently and unexpectedly, into your home?
Imagine coming out of your room at night and seeing a stranger stealing your valuables. It will be shocking and frightening.
Today’s reading described the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night, silently and unexpectedly, because no one knows when and how the day will happen.
Jesus will come at a time we do not expect, both at the end of our own life and at the end of time. Even though many people have analyzed the signs mentioned in the Bible, and tried to predict when the world would end, no one has gotten it right so far.
And anticipating the end of a person’s life is never accurate too, even for someone who seems to be dying, no one can know when exactly it will happen. Deaths that happen in the most unexpected situations are also common. We could be speaking with someone one day, and within the next few hours, we receive the news that they have passed on.
A few years ago, Fr. Dan Gehler and I had just graduated from our junior priest group on a Thursday evening. We were all excited and looking forward to the future. But that very night itself, Fr. Dan passed away in his sleep.
Ever heard of or witnessed similar situations before?
But this thief of life does not come to steal and destroy. Death is inevitable but it does not mean destruction. Let us look at it through the words we prayed in the responsorial psalm: “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.”
The end of life or the end of time is not bleak but bright. The psalmist looks forward with hope, trusting not in death as an end, but a beginning, a transition, from earthly life into the joys of heavenly eternity.
St. Paul also reminds us: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
Heaven is beyond our imagination, we can not ever imagine what God has prepared for all of us who truly love and adore Him. When we finally come face to face with our Lord, our Creator, I am sure we will all be in utter awe and amazement. We will be in shock, like facing a thief in our house.
Yes, death will be unexpected, but it is not the end, it is a passage to eternal life, a road all of us must take.
Let us look forward to that day with hope, sooner or later, may we be ready, excited, and anticipate with joy, the day we will meet the Lord. Amen.
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