by Kevin Banet
The Sunday of our life
You never know how something small can make a big change in someone’s life.
Years ago I was a fully-modern college student. Jeans and t-shirts were my daily garb. One Sunday morning as I was eating my eggs-over-easy, I spotted a small group of ten fellow students drifting into the cafeteria. Some of the girls wore dresses, an anomaly at the college. One fellow had a white shirt and a tie.
Their uncommon attire marked them obviously as Mass-goers, returning from the 9:30.
I had not attended Mass since I had arrived at the college some months before as a freshman. Although raised a Catholic, I was merely a rebel without a cause.
As I looked down on my plain jeans and t-shirt, the thought occurred to me, “I have nothing to get dressed up for.”
These students had dressed themselves for a taste of the heavenly banquet – holy Mass.
But I had not.
And yet, who knows how this thought, prompted by grace, pierces a stubborn soul? How it drips like water on a rock, its effect not noticed at first? What brought this on? The prayers of others, as of my parents?
“Encumbrances” of religion
The modern secular man, free of the “encumbrances” of religion, sees every day as the same. The cycle of the week goes round and round – the endless grind of Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill, only to watch it roll down, and then the cycle repeats. There is no climax, no height to yearn for.
But there is a height that deep down, we all really want. This is found in Christianity – the Sunday of our life, in which we share in God’s own life, and eventually see him face to face in heaven. This is where we will see throngs of people in white robes shouting out, “Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10)