Waiting with Love and Gratitude!

Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Eph 2: 12-22; Lk 12: 35-38

Today’s Gospel highlights the joy of awaiting the master’s return.

If we keenly observe, today’s Gospel is not simply about waiting patiently for the master’s return but about how we wait and with what attitude we wait. In his preaching, Jesus underlines that waiting for someone can either be a joyful or burdensome experience, depending on who we are waiting for. In other words, who we wait for determines how and with what attitude we wait for the person’s return. 

Jesus lets us understand that if we consider the master merely as an authority figure who bosses his servants, awaiting such a person’s return can become tedious and burdensome. The servants who understand the master to be a superior wielding control and power over them miss out on the relationship they share with him. In such cases, the waiting becomes a duty performed out of fear and, therefore, carried out to avoid punishment. 

Whereas those servants who love their master wait differently. Here, the waiting happens out of love. Their vigilance is an expression of love for their master, and therefore, the waiting is not experienced as an inconvenience. The love itself arises from their gratitude towards their master. Hence, the servants who wait with love remember what their master has done for them and the trust placed in them. Thus, love and gratitude change the way the servants await the master’s return.

Now, through his preaching, Jesus calls upon us to mimic the dutiful servants whose waiting is characterized by love and gratitude. A heart full of love transforms mere waiting into a spiritual experience. 

Let us pray that we may await the Lord’s coming with love and gratitude. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar