Reading a wonderful story about a how many opportunities we have and have missed, I think this is somewhat the message of the first reading today. Despite the message of the great flood, human beings continued, seemingly, to do what separated them from what God was calling them to be. The land of Shinar. The land of Babel. The human thoughts about how great the mind can be ... forgetting the one who made and created all. Ignoring his great love and care for us. The Tower of Babel incident, as recorded in Genesis should be a reminder to us that it is so easy for us to allow different forces take over our lives despite all the good that God showers upon us.
Let me adapt the story mentioned at the outset. A man was brought to consider this: how many Saturdays has he had in his lifetime and, based upon the projections for average life expectancy, how many Saturday would he have remaining? If 79 is the average life expectancy today, there would be 4108 Saturdays in the average life. If that is the case, how many Sundays of the 79 years have I used as God wants me to use them? Soon to be 70, I can count that by that birthday there will have been 3640 Sundays in my life. How many of those days have been used as a time not only for Mass but times for some quiet, some family or community gather or for little other that just doing and not "resting" on the day of rest? To make things more realistic imagine how many Sundays there will be after my 70th birthday until the projected end of my life in nine years? So, 9 time 52 equals 468. Wow! That really is very different from 3640 isn't it.
To make the matter more impacting, what if I were to go to the craft store and buy enough bags of marbles to provide me with 468 marbles and then placed those 468 marbles in a clear glass cylinder-like vase and then began to remove one marble with each Sunday. If it did not hit me with the number of past Sundays I will have celebrated by the time of my 70th birthday, 3640, I know that seeing only 468 marbles will definitely impact my thinking.
Pope Benedict has reiterated this message many times: we human beings need a place for God in our private lives. Each time in the future, when I will be removing a marble from the vase, will I sense a wasted day or one where I have put aside some time for God and am all the better because of that?
This little exercise is indeed an eye opener. It surely awakened in my mind the need to reconsider how I use the days in my life that God has arranged for me before my body gives out and there will be no more tomorrows, no more days I can delay doing what is best for me.
And you? How does this little story impact you? Will I by chance run into you in one of the craft shops asking the salesperson, "Where do you have bags of marbles?"
