Episode Transcript  

One

Work in the Day

There’s a point in John’s Gospel, just as Jesus is getting ready to do one of his many miracles of healing, where He makes this interesting pronouncement, “We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work” (John 9:4). Obviously, there are three interesting terms here: day, night, and work. What do each of them mean?

Two

The Work of God = Love of God

Let’s begin with the “work” we’re supposed to do. What is the work of God? What does God command? Well, above all, we have been commanded to love. And above all, we have been commanded to love God. Jesus is pretty clear on this. He states unequivocally that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength. That is the central work of God: to love God.

But wait, that doesn’t seem to make sense! If doing God’s work just means loving God, then why is there any rush on that? Why do we have to be busy about that now? Don’t we have an eternity to love God? We can do that forever in Heaven, right? Why not love the things of earth now, while we have the chance, while they’re here? We can learn to love God later, when we get to Heaven.

Actually, though, that’s not true. That’s not how it works. There’s a real sense in which right now, during our time on earth, is the only time we have to love God. Forever.

Three

Love requires Freedom – the ability to do otherwise.

Has anyone ever let you know that a certain good thing has happened on your behalf, and when you tried to thank them for it, they said, “Oh, don’t thank me. It wasn’t my decision.”  That’s an interesting expression, “It wasn’t my decision.” It’s an interesting expression because it implies that I’m only really showing love or heroism or generosity if I’m making a choice. And that if I’m only doing what I have to do, what isn’t up to me, then it doesn’t really come from me.

Put it differently: you can only really show love if it’s possible for you to do less than you’re doing. You can only show love if it’s possible for you act one way instead of another. If you have no choice in the matter, then you simply have no opportunity to prove your love for anyone. You can say you love them, you can always say that, it’s always an easy thing to say, but you can’t actually love someone unless you actually give to them in freedom. And, as it happens, the time of our freedom is running out.

Four

The Night: When No One Can Work

The only way we can show real love is if we have the possibility of not being generous, and yet we choose to be generous anyway. And here’s the thing: the only chance you get, for all eternity, to act one way instead of another, is this life. After this life, whether you head to purgatory, heaven or hell, the time of your choice is over. Everything that happens to you from death onward, and all your actions, will only be the consequence of what you have already chosen. The time for being able to do one thing instead of another will be past.

Yes, we can still love God in purgatory and in heaven, in the sense that we delight in His goodness, and we are grateful that we have chosen to be with Him instead of being without Him forever. And we can even cooperate with Him in doing good on earth with our prayerful intercession. But we cannot work for Him anymore. We cannot prove that we love Him by choosing Him over the other, lesser things we might choose. Our choice will be gone, and when our choice goes our chance to demonstrate, to prove, to freely give ourselves to God as an unnecessary gift.

This is our chance. This is our one day, the time when it is light, the time when we can work for God. And we will never have a chance to work for God, to prove our love for Him again. For all eternity, even if we make it to heaven, we will never have this chance again.

Five

The Day: the Time for Freely Loving God

In purgatory and Heaven we will love God of necessity. We will be overwhelmed by His goodness, mesmerized, captivated. But now, we only have to love Him if we choose. That’s what daylight means: it means time to freely love God. God has given us a little more daylight, a little more time.

This time, this daylight, is our chance to draw close to him of our own free will. Spending time with Him in prayer, every day. Going often to mass, often to confession. Making resolutions to remove the sins that keep us at a distance from the Lord.

Now is our time. Now is the day. So that for all eternity, we can say to God, “I loved You. I loved you before I had to. I gave you myself while I still had that gift to give. And I’m so happy I did.”

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