Theme of the Day: The Christian Waits: Watchful For The Bridegroom
Imagine you are planning to take the family out to dinner. You all have to wait on someone to get ready. Minute after minute passes. What can happen in that situation? It is easy to focus on something else and completely forget the original goal. When that family member is finally ready, you’ve become immersed in a movie. Or perhaps, as you were waiting, you grew drowsy and fell asleep.
As we wait for Christ to return, as day after day passes, it can be easy to get distracted, to lose vigilance, to become spiritually drowsy. God forbid that Christ should return and find us spiritually asleep. Today we are reminded that the time in between Christ’s first and second coming is a time for watchfulness. The Church prayers, “Lord God, keep us every watchful for the coming of your Son that we may sit with him and all your holy ones at the marriage feast in heaven.”
Matthew 25:1-13
Isaiah 52:1-6
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Psalm 90
707 – Cling Tightly to the Word of God
486 – Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying
889 – Jerusalem the Golden
873 – Rise, My Soul, to Watch and Pray
820 – O God, Our Help in Ages Past
Prayer of the Day: Almighty God and Savior, you have set the final day and hour when we shall be delivered from this world of sin and death. Keep us ever watchful for the coming of your Son that we may sit with him and all your holy ones at the marriage feast in heaven; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Alleluia.