Wakefulness and Faithful Stewardship

Some days, the readings land like a wake‑up call we didn’t know we needed. Today is one of those days. St. Paul insists that grace is not an excuse but a liberation; the psalm remembers rescue; and Jesus speaks about staying awake and being a faithful steward. Together they ask a hard and hopeful question: What am I doing with what has been entrusted to me—my body, my time, my influence, my relationships—when no one but God is watching?

Freedom Under Grace

Paul writes, “Sin must not reign over your mortal bodies… you are not under the law but under grace” (Romans 6:12,14). Grace does not make sin inconsequential; it makes holiness possible. The difference matters in a world saturated with habits that look harmless but quietly claim mastery—compulsive scrolling that steals our attention from those we love, sarcasm that corrodes trust, consumption that numbs sorrow without healing it.

Paul’s image is bracing: our bodies can become “weapons” for wickedness or for righteousness. In other words, the very places where temptation presses—our eyes, our tongues, our hands—can become sites of obedience and love. Under grace, the same smartphone that once fed envy can become a channel of intercession and encouragement; the same tongue that gossiped can bless and reconcile; the same fatigue that excused anger can turn into patience that surprises even us. Grace does not only pardon the past; it re-equips the present.

“Our Help Is in the Name of the Lord”

Psalm 124 remembers what is easy to forget in the adrenaline of modern life: we have been rescued. “Broken was the snare, and we were freed.” Many carry snares today—addictions, anxious scripts, family wounds, cultural pressures. The psalm does not deny danger; it denies its final say. Memory is moral muscle: to recall God’s past rescues is to refuse despair’s story about the future.

Try using the psalm as a breath-prayer in the moment of trial: Inhale—“Our help is in the name of the Lord.” Exhale—“Who made heaven and earth.” It’s a small rebellion against the lie that you’re on your own.

Staying Awake When It’s Easier to Drift

Jesus’s parable in Luke 12 does not flatter religious busywork. He asks whether the steward uses time, authority, and resources to nourish others or to exploit them. The line is chillingly current: “to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk.” Abuse of power today may look like manipulating a team for career gain, spiritualizing control in a parish or home, cutting ethical corners because “everyone does it,” or letting entertainment drown out the quiet claims of conscience.

Vigilance, then, is not paranoia about dates and apocalyptic signs. It’s fidelity in the ordinary: showing up on time, keeping your word, telling the truth when it costs you, distributing “the food allowance at the proper time”—giving people what they are due in justice and love. Jesus is clear: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much.” In an age of platforms and followers, that sentence should sober anyone with a microphone, a budget, a pulpit, a classroom, or a home.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom, wrote that it is better to be a Christian in deeds than merely to be called one. He had no illusions about the gap between naming Christ and imitating Him. The faithful steward closes that gap, not with spectacle, but with sustained integrity.

Interior Watchfulness: Learning from St. Teresa of Ávila

If exterior fidelity is the fruit, interior watchfulness is the root. St. Teresa of Ávila described prayer as “an intimate sharing between friends.” She urged a steady, simple return to the Lord in the midst of tasks, not a search for extraordinary experiences. Detachment, humility, and love—her three anchors—teach a freedom that keeps us awake:

• Detachment from cravings that demand instant relief.
• Humility that admits our need for help.
• Love that turns contemplation into concrete service.

A practical way forward: anchor the day with small, regular pauses of recollected prayer; make a nightly examen to notice where you were awake to God and where you drifted; and bring the places of drift to Confession, where grace reclaims the ground you surrendered.

Much Given, Much Required—In Real Life

Many today are entrusted with more than previous generations even imagined: information, purchasing power, connectivity, visibility. That “more” is not neutral.

• In the workplace: lead in a way that protects the vulnerable and shares credit fairly.
• Online: curate truth over rage, presence over performance.
• At home: invest attention where algorithms cannot—at the dinner table, in bedtime blessings, in patient listening.
• In public life: practice solidarity—advocating for the unborn and the poor, for migrants and the elderly, for just wages and honest work—refusing the lazy politics of contempt.

This is stewardship as Jesus defines it: distributing what is needed, when it’s needed, to those who need it—because it’s not ours, it’s His.

Optional Memorial: St. John Paul II and Courageous Stewardship

Today the Church also holds the optional memorial of Saint John Paul II. Karol Wojtyła lived under two brutal regimes, lost his family young, labored in a quarry, loved literature and hiking, and carried a philosopher’s mind into a pastor’s heart. As pope, he traveled to the peripheries, called an anxious world to “Be not afraid,” and taught tirelessly about the dignity of the human person and the splendor of truth.

Entrusted with much, he lived Luke 12 from the Chair of Peter: feeding the flock with clear teaching, asking the strong to protect the weak, forgiving the man who shot him, and suffering publicly in a way that gave millions permission to see weakness not as failure but as gift. His life reminds us that grace makes courage contagious.

Practicing Wakefulness This Week

• Present your body: choose one concrete, bodily act of righteousness each day (guard your tongue, offer patient presence, give alms anonymously).
• Make space for rescue: schedule five minutes of quiet with Psalm 124; let gratitude rewrite your inner narrative.
• Close the day with an examen: where did you use influence to serve, and where to self‑indulge? Make one amends promptly.
• Fast from a distraction that dulls your attention to God and neighbor; feast on Scripture or a phone call to someone who needs encouragement.
• Receive the Sacraments if possible; let grace be more than a concept—let it be contact.

Grace has moved in your direction. Wakefulness is simply cooperating with that movement. Freed from sin, you are not unclaimed; you belong to righteousness. The Master is not far off. He finds us at the sink, the spreadsheet, the sickbed, the street corner—wherever daily fidelity is quietly turning ordinary time into holy time.