Behold, the Lord is coming with peace in His hands

The opening prayer of today’s liturgy awakens us to the coming of the Lord, who is “descending with splendor”  to visit us “with peace” and  “will bestow on us “eternal  life.” Wow!  Each of us is waiting for both of those gifts: peace and eternal life.  I thought of a cousin through marriage who is dying of cancer and has been given about a month to live.  Imagine yourself facing the end of your sojourn here on earth, knowing in faith that your God is “descending with splendor” and will be visiting you with the gifts of peace and eternal life. What more would you need in that point in time? Certainly nothing the world is capable of giving!   We know that the time will come for all of us when we will have no more than a month left to live.  How prepared am I to meet  a Visitor who comes with peace in His hands?  Or am I not ready—will God find someone who is not at peace with him/herself and not at peace with others, in short, is not a peace-maker? Will God, as Jesus said to those He sent out to evangelize, find no peace “under my roof,” need to shake the dust off His feet and sadly move to someone who’s heart is ready? Do I make a way for God by being a peacemaker when around me there is anything but peace or am I the one disturbing the peace by my obnoxious, insensitive, unkind behaviors and attitudes? Am I a  “good news” or a “bad news” person, that is, someone  who berates others, says mean things to others , is a “know-it-all” person who discounts other people’s intelligence and experiences or, much worse, am I that person who says unkind things behind people’s backs rather than confronting them directly, not out of anger but out of love,  with the behavior that is offensive to me? “Behold, the Lord is coming.” Is my house in order?