“Stay awake, keep the lamp burning.”

The Gospel today invites us to become aware of the passivity to which the routine of life often leads us, and to take charge of our lives with more courage and generosity. The call is to be awake and vigilant because passivity leads us to fall asleep, to live carried by the current without hardly realizing that we are asleep. Jesus insisted many times on the need to be watching as one who is waiting for someone or is responsible for something. He calls us to live the faith in an attentive, discerning attitude, open to what God through his Spirit indicates to us in our day to day. This attitude is what allows us to live with meaning, to get out of ourselves and to be attentive to others who need us. Without a doubt, the most decisive thing is to live moved by love. Only those who love can remain attentive and available; only those who love have in themselves the reason to be always awake. How strong in us is this motivation that encourages us to live?